HJ Holmes and the Discovery of Identity
by Irishdanceringrulz1776
Summary: Harry and Hermione are unexpectedly thrust into an adventure, not of their own choosing, which takes them further from Hogwarts than they could have possibly expected. Along the way home, they will find that not all people are as history remembers them, and sometimes a legacy is best left alone.
1. A Study in Time- part 1

Chapter 1: A Study in Time, pt. 1

 _From the future two shall come_

 _To learn greatness, power and wisdom_

 _To teach, learn and grow_

 _And darkness' reign overthrow_

 _The snake and eagle, once and always best friends_

 _Shall together stick until the very, bitter, end_

 _Joined by the daughter of badger and lion,_

 _Together, the three, overthrow the corrupt régime_

September, 2013:

The first weekend of term, Harry did what he and Hermione always did when they wanted to know something- he went to the library to find out more. In this case, it was Time Turners, as Hermione had been using one to get to all her classes thus far; or, at least, Harry was pretty sure that was the case. Of course, a Harry raised by Sherlock Holmes probably was closer to correct whilst guessing than a regular person would be with copious amounts of research. The sound of someone coming up behind him did not cause him to look up, engrossed as he was in his research. This particular book was written in Latin, a language he had some knowledge of, but would need to concentrate to be able to comprehend in such an academic manner. He jumped when someone tapped his shoulder impatiently.

"Harry! What are you doing?" It was Hermione. Harry sighed, looking at her, whilst trying in vain to hide that he was researching Time Turners. She would figure it out soon enough- in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and-

"Why are you researching Time Turners?" Just on time, as he knew it would be, and now he needs to answer, without giving away that his father broke the oath of secrecy to him regarding the top student and the time turner. And he already knew his mouth would probably run away with him, and he would somehow let it slip that he's been checking her age each morning without her knowledge or consent.

"Hermione, I know you try to hide that you're using one, but, honestly, you ought to have one with a greater time capacity. After all, one as observant as myself would notice you slipping away. I was raised by _the_ Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. They also happen to have raised you for a while as well! Surely you did not think you could get away with hiding that you are aging slightly more rapidly than others in our year, somehow finding time to sleep, and somehow transporting yourself across the castle to the library when I know I left the Common Room before you could have possibly done so, and took the shortest route. Add in that you consistently disappear right before or after a class period that you have scheduled double, and that you seem to be about as tired and irritable as those who sleep one night out of three, and I know that you've been time travelling. Add in the necklace you were tucking under your robes the night of the Welcoming Feast, and the fact that a Time Turner is the only Ministry-approved form of time travel, and you find that all the clues lead to you using a Time Turner to get to classes."

"And you are telling me all this because?"

"You need to use it to get some more sleep, as well as take me along with you. I would love to be able to take Arithmancy- it looks completely fascinating- but I don't have _time_ between taking Runes, Care for Magical Creatures, and the music lessons Sherlock insists upon. I would take Divination, but I doubt I have the Inner Eye. I could add onto the classes I'm taking with Muggle Studies, or use the rest of the time each day to self-study for Muggle tests. I asked Professor McGonagall, but she said that only the top student in each year is given a Time Turner, although, if I can convince you to let me join you, I could do so." Some of Harry's first words finally were processed, and Hermione glared at him, much to his chagrin. He hoped that saying the things he knew would slip out later first, and then giving her an information overload, would be enough to keep her from remembering. Alas, it was not to be.

"How do you know I am aging more quickly? We've been here less than a _week_."

"You would not believe how exact Sherlock had me be with finding the ages of cadavers; both at the time of death, and post-mortem, or, rather, how long before it was preserved, as different solutions react differently with different genes, causing some cadavers to decompose at a different rate. It is simply fascinating, even though it was also rather difficult. By the end of the summer, we had puzzled out a way to do it with _magic_."

"That was this summer?"

"Yeah, after I blew up Aunt Marge while I was staying with her and Dudley, and then ran away to London, for Uncle Mycroft to find me. It was my punishment for letting my temper get the better of me, losing control, for the first time in over five years, might I add, and for leaving too much evidence of magic behind."

"You had magical control at 8? I thought we were working on it together until our Hogwarts letters came? And besides, I would wager that you do sometimes lose control. I imagine the first and second years would agree, if not most of our year mates."

"Nah, 7; Sherlock reckons that's a magical number, and that most people can't achieve complete control after that age. Personally, I reckon it is 17, the time they say everyone comes into their magical inheritance. He just was training us in wandless magic together. Well, and obviously Runes, but I do hope you realized that. Besides, you lose control sometimes as well. I get it, though; sometimes it just leaks out when you really don't want it to. For example, I did not want to inflate Dudley's Aunt this summer, but she was going on and on about what a criminal my father was, and I just couldn't hold it in anymore." Hermione gawked at him.

"Well, I doubt you actually have magical control already; last year, and this summer, proved that losing your temper causes you to still lose control. I doubt I do, all the time either. I mean, even your father can't completely control his magic! And that's kind of stupid; it's accepted that human magical maturity happens at 16 for males, and 17 for females. I read about it in that book Dad got me for my birthday last year. But you do realize that the number seven does factor into it, right? Just not in any direct way? Anyone over a seven on the Newtonian Index of Magic can do some wandless magic; that is only about 10% of the magical population in modern times. At the time Hogwarts was founded, it is thought to have been was closer to 45% of the magical population had a 6 or 7, and about half and half of the remainders were over or under. I found a spell in here last year to find out a person's NIM, and wrote it down in my notebook."

Now it was Harry's turn to gawk. Sherlock had never mentioned anything about anything like that, and he would often get into discussions (others would call them debates or lectures) with Harry over magical theory and the workings of a person's magic. A long moment of silence ensued. Finally, he asked, "Could I see it sometime?"

"Sure- let me find it." She ruffled through the pages quickly, scanning the words on the page faster than Harry had ever seen her do. _Add several productivity charms to that list of study aides... I wonder if John knows she's so stressed...And it's not even the end of the first month..._ Soon, she had found the page, and showed it to Harry.

"It needs someone else to cast it. As you can see from the date, it was right before the basilisk that I found it, and so I never got a chance to try to cast it with anyone. I can't believe I forgot about it this summer, although I bet Sherlock would be able to find it easily if he really wanted you to know something like that." Harry scowled, and then pulled out his wand to start, looking somewhat defiant. There probably was some sort of reason that Sherlock had never mentioned it to him before, especially considering it was not specialized knowledge if Hermione found it in a book from her father. That reasoning made Harry all the more convinced that he had to try it.

"I'll try it with you, and then you can try it with me. It looks relatively simple, but does seem to have multiple parts."

Indeed, it did; first, the subject had to light a _lumos_ without using any words. Both Harry and Hermione had read a book about wordless magic, and how thinking the spell would often work, if you start trying nonverbal spells by your third or fourth year of education. They had started practicing two years before, and both could make a rather strong glow nonverbally. Harry lit his wand with ease, noticing that it was slightly brighter than it had been the year before.

Next, Hermione had to cast a spell at the light. There was no wand movement, just a simple _chançon conte_ while she stared at the light on the end of Harry's wand. The light brightened, then quickly flashed from yellow, to orange, to red, to purple, and to blue, before finally stopping on acid green. Hermione looked through her notes, finally finding the light green near the bottom of her list (the list stopped on white, although there was a note that really powerful wizards could make it cycle through the colours, and then do so again, indicating the degree of "upper 10" they were.).

"Light green is an upper 8, although reading through this, it seems as though most people under 16 or 17 can't make it go past a lower 7. Those that can reach the 7 tend to reach a 10 at their magical maturity."

They did the same process with their roles reversed, and found that Hermione had a lower eight, with a green about the same colour as Harry's eyes.

After lunch, they went back to the library to try to figure out how to change the Time Turner to reach back a day at a time. They had actually almost figured it out when it was time for dinner; Sherlock had started them on Runes when Hermione first moved in with them. Sherlock had a strange love for Runes, despite Mrs. Hudson's annoyance with him putting them all over the flat to keep them safer. It had worked, however, as no one was able to get in with foul intent toward Harry. One Death Eater had even broken his spine, and was permanently paralyzed, because he had tried to come in through the window while Harry slept. In any case, Runes were a topic that Sherlock declared never had unimportant information that needed to be deleted, so he personally saw to their education in them. If there were no age or formal educational requirements to taking OWLs or NEWTs, they would probably have been able to sit them their first day at Hogwarts. Both were adept at researching them, and could easily put them together into a cohesive whole.

They agreed they would edit the Runes the next day, and then departed for some quiet time, which Harry had convinced Hermione she needed. Harry knew _he_ would probably also need that quiet time. He looked forward to sleeping in the next morning, as it was a Sunday.

* * *

At the crack of dawn, Harry realized his plans were probably shot, as Roger Davies came in and woke him to train. Thinking _this is just like last year_ , Harry almost didn't notice that the Holmes family/British Government had "anonymously" donated seven Firebolts to each of the Hogwarts Quidditch teams. Indeed, not only had he done so (and Harry was beginning to think it was Sherlock, with Mycroft's help, as Mycroft wouldn't think to do it by himself, but Sherlock would blow his cover by doing so. Contrary to popular belief, he could not keep anything a secret. The number of hints he had left for John, all around London, was rather intense), but it seemed they had asked they be custom made for each of the positions. The Keeper's broom had a little K on it, and seemed to be a bit more stable. The Chasers had a C on each broom, and each was more agile while remaining rather fast. The Beaters also had rather fast brooms (with a B on them), with a little more stability, which was probably necessary while being a Beater. The Seeker's broom was the fastest of the brooms by far (if not for the way the speed would affect him, Harry probably could outfly the snitch), but lost a large bit of the stability to keep the agility.

Davies insisted that they each practice half the time on a broom not suited to their position, and then swapped with Harry. Practice continued to be gruelling, even once Harry had his own broom back.

Exhausted, but ready to help Hermione, Harry dashed back up to the Ravenclaw Tower to shower after practice was over, seeing John along the way (although both he and Hermione were confused as to why he was willing to go by, pretty much, Wolf-raised-Man Werewolf). John's birth name was Remus John Lupin, but he had legally changed it in the Muggle World to distance himself from wizardkind. He still went by R.J. Lupin in the Wizarding World, which both Harry and Hermione found annoying, as his name practically screamed "I'm a werewolf, shun me!". Harry had taken to calling him John, or Professor Watson, much to his annoyance. With Hermione's backing, John was able to get Harry to stop calling him "Doctor Watson"; John felt he couldn't complain much when Harry at least used the correct titles, if not the correct name.

John seemed annoyed yet that Harry persisted in calling him Professor Watson, but Harry, in true Holmes fashion, ignored that annoyance in favour of prattling on about a book he had discovered that was written by a Muggleborn who used magic in her work as a detective. He was so excited that he almost slipped and said that his father would probably love to meet this detective, as she was probably not very dull, like the detectives his father knew. Hermione winced every time Harry called him Professor Watson, knowing her father hoped to forget that Harry was the son of three of his closest friends, in his mind all deceased. He could not do that when Harry ignored social convention, like Sherlock, while showcasing his excitement at anything (he would tap the side of his leg, like Lily), or would mess up his hair during points of exasperation (like James, his adopted father).

Together, they all got some late breakfast, Harry and Hermione maintained they would study all day, grabbed some extra food for lunch, and then the teens headed off to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, where they began to work on the Time Turner. They made sure to keep all notes in a muggle notebook, written in pencil, so that it would not run if the pages got wet. They finished it late that night, and snuck back to the Common Room, deciding they would use it the next evening. The worst that could happen, in Harry's mind, was that they ended up a couple days too far back, but, as he had not seen himself, he highly doubted they had done that. If it did not work, after they removed the modifications, the Time Turner could go back up to eight hours, leading to them being able to repeat just the day, although doing that every day would wear it out too much, and lead to telling calluses (not that every hour wouldn't!). Bringing both of them back in time daily or hourly would be too much strain on the delicate object, without their modifications.

* * *

That next day passed quickly, and soon they found themselves in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom again, slipping the necklace over Harry's head. Harry had just lugged their trunks to the bathroom, as Hermione was serving a detention. The trunks were necessary because Hermione worried that they could go back in time hundreds of years (Harry assured her he doubted they had that much power, to which she gave him a dubious look). They picked up the trunks, looked at each other, and then, Hermione spun the Time Turner one turn. It quickly spun out of her control, spinning so rapidly that she moved her hand away to avoid getting a cut from it.

Everything around them blurred, and they could see everything going backwards quickly. Hermione whimpered when it didn't stop after a few moments, as she was used to. It sped up to the point they could see the window flashing like a strobe light. As time slowed again, the window disappeared, and they found themselves above a grassy knoll, with the light around them flickering and changing.

Harry felt rather nauseous and lightheaded. Hermione looked slightly green.

Finally, the flickers slowed, and then stopped. Hermione, chancing a look over at Harry, saw that he was swaying, while she, herself, was sure the world was spinning around her. As one, they fell close to 200 feet, feeling, as they bounced, the last few dregs of their cores draining, and then collapsed onto the ground, fighting unconsciousness until it finally overwhelmed them.

* * *

 **So- this is the first chapter of a story that I've been working on for quite a while. If anyone has any ideas for a better title or summary, please let me know! I'd love some reviews on this story; hopefully, I will have the next chapter out pretty quickly. This chapter was one of the shortest, but it is a prologue/1st chapter rolled into one (but still almost 3,000 words).**

 **And, obviously, if I am posting this here, I evidently do not own anything created by JKR or anyone affiliated with the BBC. I'll let you know if that changes.**


	2. A Study in Time- part 2

983

Hermione woke to find herself sharing a rather large bed with Harry. There was a kind looking woman standing over them, looking at them. Hermione looked over to see that Harry's glasses had broken, meaning he would probably be blind for a while yet, until they could get him new frames. The _reparo_ spell had stopped working around him a while ago. Like his father, there were some spells, that if used too often, they would develop an intolerance for, and their magic would react against it, causing the spell to fail. _Reparo_ was one that both Holmeses had developed a resistance to early in life (12 for Sherlock, and 9 for Harry), which had led to searches for other repairing charms to no avail.

She looked closer at the woman, who bore a more than passing resemblance to her mother, with her dark, slightly frizzy hair, small nose, light skin, and regal posture. The only things about her that were different were her eyes, a dark blue, like the sky on a cloudless night, and her age, as she looked maybe a couple years past puberty. The woman was also looking at her in much the same way, muttering to herself in a strange language. She stared at Hermione, and asked her something, to which Hermione had no idea what to respond, as she could not understand her.

Deciding that modern English probably was too different from the present's (whenever that was) version, she tried to speak in French, as Sherlock claimed modern French went into making modern English. She understood Latin from a purely academic standpoint, although she and Harry had discussed practicing it until they could converse comfortably in the language.

"Excusez-moi, mais je ne peux pas vous comprendre." A small light of understanding came into the woman's eyes, and, after thinking for several long moments, she responded, "Et ero vous præsidium", which Hermione assumed to be a mix of French and Latin (although it used words Hermione had never heard before), and then waved her hand, first at Hermione, then at Harry.

The woman repeated her question, and this time, Hermione found she could understand her.

"How did you get here? I know you did not walk into our wards, but we are warded against any form of travel."

"Even time travel?"

"Ummm... Did you depart from an area near here?"

"No idea. I came from far in the future with a modified Time Turner. Harry here did the same, with me. I do not know what this time is, even, but I do know that you do not speak the same language as either of us." The woman rolled her eyes at Hermione stating the obvious.

"It is the 983rd year of our Lord's promise. What is a Time Turner?"

"Oops. Again, I do not think any maps survived, although Harry might have one that'll help. We should wait until he wakes up, though, before digging through his stuff. How long has it been that we've been out, anyway?"

"I've been nursing the two of you back to health for the last two weeks. You both depleted your magic to dangerous levels. Indeed, when my husband found you, you were both about to leave for your eternal life. However, he found you, and you will both have to wait just a bit longer, I'm afraid."

"That's all fine. Better than fine, in fact. Thank you. Anything else I ought to know?"

"Your friend- Harry, you called him?- was severely beaten and malnourished when he was younger. I am unsure if you are aware of that."

"Aye, I am aware. His aunt and uncle were supposed to be raising him, up until the day they died in an accident. I doubt there was much in that relationship, past that of an overseer and a manservant. His uncle's sister refused to take him in for more than three weeks at a time, but, fortuitously, his actual father had figured out where he was rather quickly, although he does have to stay with her for two weeks each year due to custody issues within the Muggle world. She gives him all sorts of grief about his father being a consulting detective, claiming it is a fancy way of saying "unemployed", although he makes more than she does in a year by a large margin." The woman looked somewhat confused at some of the words Hermione used, but Hermione was too tired to notice or care. The woman nodded and added to her observations about Harry.

"And Harry's vision is terrible. We have a potion that a person can take, once they are over the age of 14, which makes their eyesight beyond that of a normal human. There is no way to dilute it, except for through bloodlines, so usually a person is instead blood adopted into a family with that potion in their bloodline that lost an heir around that age, or blood adopted into a family that does not have any issues with vision. He is still 13, while you are barely 14. Is that correct?"

"I suppose it is. Well, he will be 14 come July."

"Then he is nearing the maximum edge of blood adoptions, of 15 years of age. As are you."

"Isn't that, well, Dark magic?"

"No, it is not. Blood does not necessarily mean dark. Some of the best kinds of magic, like full adoptions and marriage, require blood to properly complete. Of course, you would never want a person to take any of your blood without you present to make sure it is all used, as you could then be the unwitting participant in any number of Dark rituals, but we do use many love-based rituals commonly. Many use at least a marginal amount of blood."

Harry shifted slightly in his sleep, and the woman looked slightly nervous. Hermione did notice her unease, and decided to try to distract the woman from it.

"By the way, what is your name? I go by Hermione Jane Watson, although my father insists our last name is Lupin. His mother's last name was Watson, though, so it's not like it was a made-up last name."

"You should respect what your father claims as your family name. You look a Lupin. I am Lady Hippolyta Ravenclaw, sister of the esteemed Rowena Ravenclaw. Indeed, I named my daughter after my sister, but little Ro died just last Yule, from spattergroit. She was 13 years old. At least her best friend, Salazar Slytherin (his family lives just across the lake), died the same day. I doubt either would have been able to go on without the other. I had to pause for a moment, when my husband brought you two in. You look just like Ro, or at least, when your eyes were closed, you did. I would suppose she would look slightly different now, but you remind me of her, much like a younger sibling reminds everyone who knows the older sibling, of the older sibling. Harry looked like Salazar by more than a passing deal, with his somewhat more angular face, and dark, messy hair, although Salazar kept his longer, to keep the back from sticking up, and would probably be taller now, had he lived. We've been rather secluded from other families. No one was invited to the funerals of our children, except for the close family and friends. I did not even allow my father's best friend and his family to come, as the Gryffindors are a sometimes gossipy bunch. I told him he was not allowed to even tell the Gryffindors what happened, as I do not want to deal with it every time I go out and about. He never forgave me for that transgression, although he did take the secret to the grave. People judge if you mourn your children, if they were not even adults yet. Any number of childhood illnesses can and do take them, sometimes without warning. We are supposed to count ourselves lucky that we go to spend however long we got with them. Most families don't announce when, or if, their children die, unless they've had their formal introduction to the four local noble families- the Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, Slytherins, and Gryffindors. It usually waits until they are about 16 or 17, but sometimes it happens when they're older."

She looked again at Hermione's eyes, sighing as she did so. Hermione thought it rather odd that she was laying her very soul, seemingly, bare for a total stranger, even if she did look like her deceased daughter. She supposed it possibly had something to do with the fact that Harry and she would be there for a while, and obviously, secrets like that are not well-kept when people share living quarters.

"Ahh, her eyes, her blue, blue eyes. What colour eyes does Harry have?"

"Bright green. I've never seen another person with eyes that colour, although I hear his mother had the same eye colour."

"Then he is practically Salazar reincarnated, although I doubt he has some of the talents of Salazar's family."

"Talents?" Hermione had suspicions of what those particular talents were, but decided to keep her knowledge out of it. She would not want to appear suspicious, after all. Going from being completely unable to speak the language to knowing semi-intimate details about a specific family would come off as exactly that.

"They all can speak to snakes, or at least, his paternal grandmother's family can. Many of them are so used to it, they lapse into Parseltongue without even meaning to. Some of the siblings of his grandmother, Belladonna, spoke solely in Parseltongue to each other, as a way of keeping the language alive. In fact, Ro learned Parseltongue, or at least how to understand it, because Salazar would lapse into it so often. Apollo, Salazar's father, often would speak it to him, just as he did with Salazar's older siblings. Now, tell me, does your friend have that skill?"

"Yes, he does speak Parseltongue, but he does not slip into it unintentionally, unless there is a snake nearby, that he can see. I don't know what happens when someone else speaks to him in it, but I'd assume he'd unconsciously answer in the same way. The only other person we know of that speaks Parseltongue would be someone that is supposed to be dead. I don't think he could speak it on command, either, though. It's either that or he likes the aesthetic of a giant snake. Somehow, I doubt that being would willingly speak it to Harry either way."

"That is usually what happens when a Parselmouth marries a non-Parselmouth. Salazar, it seems, was an exception, probably merely due to his other gifts. Apollo is able to speak it without a snake present, due to the way his mother always spoke it to him in his youth. I believe that, if Apollo were to solely speak it to Harry, he would soon begin to speak the common tongue with the same accent as Salazar had." Harry shifted in his sleep again, this time murmuring something unintelligible as he did so. "Now, go back to sleep. I'd like to see your magical core recover further, but that is not going to happen unless you sleep first."

Hermione did as she was told, and laid her head back on the pillow, allowing sleep to overtake her. That short conversation certainly took a lot out of her.

When Lady Ravenclaw came back into the room to check on the two of them, she smiled, seeing Harry and Hermione curled up together. She never thought she'd see such a scene again, as had been common up to 8 months before.

She sighed, hoping that, if they found themselves stuck in the past, Hermione would agree to masquerade as Rowena, and Harry as Salazar. The common magical folk needed someone to rally around, and that was exactly what those two children had been for them. No one need know that they were not who others thought them to be. Since they were not known formally to anyone besides their two natal families, no one else need know the original Salazar and Rowena existed no longer.

After all, they were prophesized to start the best institution of magic thus far.

* * *

When Harry woke, mere hours later, it was to find a man with an uncanny similarity to Sherlock standing there, even if he was an indistinct shape- a blur- until he came further into Harry's field of vision. His hair was dark, and somewhat messy, despite the styling he obviously attempted in it, while his cheekbones gave him an aristocratic look. His eyes were as green as Harry's own; indeed, they could pass for brothers easily, as the man looked to physically be in his late 20's. His eyes seemed to have seen several decades, if not centuries, more life than his body would suggest, as was common among magical beings. An example Harry knew quite well was that of Professor McGonagall, who looked to be in her late 40's, but was really closer to her mid 70's. This man's face just took it to a greater extreme than Harry had ever experienced before.

He looked rather uncertain, a look that Harry personally thought was an odd feature for a man looking so much like Sherlock to have, even if their faces were slightly different. And, of course, Sherlock's hair was curly while the man's hair was straight and stuck up in various places, much like Harry's own. Harry hoped he looked that good in 50 years time.

"My name is Lord Apollo Slytherin. _You are ssstaying currently in the houssse of the Ravenclawsss, but_ I _would really love to adopt you. You sssee, I lossst my only heir last year, young Harry, and I would really appresssiate it if you would take on my family name, at least to the public. Your friend Hermione told Hippolyta- that'sss Lady Ravenclaw, by the way- that you could speak Parssseltongue, which is really the only thing needed for it to work for you to be blood-adopted into my family. Your uncanny resssemblance to my family makesss it even easier, as I think you could be one of our distant dessscendantsss. You would probably only have to agree to sssigning the adoption papers with a blood quill, which, although often poorly usssed, can be usssed for sssome of the most beautiful magic in the world, including adoptionsss and marriagesss. If you ussse a blood quill to write a protection rune onto one you love, it can block the Killing Curssse, although, if usssed too often, it will kill the person doing the protecting. The Killing Curssse is also one of the most easily blocked curses for thossse of my blood, as it reboundsss off thossse who speak Parssseltongue well._

 _"_ _Additionally, the Killing Curssse just needs some form of light to disrupt its wavelengthsss. A Patronusss is bessst, although even a_ lumos _ss would work."_

 _"_ _What wasss your ssson'sss name?"_ Harry was getting a sinking feeling that Hermione was this open about who they were because they were stuck there, and would eventually have to do something big so that they could go back through time, and still exist. This man also seemed to be trying to endear Harry to him, maybe by trying to prove to him that surviving the Killing Curse was nothing special, so that he would then feel indebted to Slytherin, and agree to whatever he asked of Harry, and on Hermione's behalf, whatever he asked of her. Harry hoped Hermione had not mentioned Voldemort to anyone, although he highly doubted that she had. The man seemed to know more about his health than Hermione did, probably due to magical scans he had performed to save Harry's life. It would not be the first time; John had done the same when he first moved into 221B.

 _"_ _Sssalazar. Hisss besst friend wasss named Rowena. They were both rather powerful; indeed, ssso much ssso, they assssidentally completed the Animagusss transssformation when they were too young. If it isss completed too early, the new Animagusss is given more of the giftsss of that particular animal."_

 _"_ _So Sssalazar wasss a sssnake, and Rowena wasss an eagle?"_

 _"_ _Yesss, very good. How ever did you know?"_

 _"_ _Lucky guesss, I guesss. Or, rather, hindsssight is 20/20. I doubt Hermione told you much about me; did sssomeone run a healths ssscan on me? Hermione deniesss that I was hit by a Killing Curse as an infant, ssso I doubt she would sssay such a thing. But obviousssly, it isss sssomething that could have plausssibly happened."_ Apollo nodded. They lapsed into silence. Harry had no idea what to say to the idea of adoption- especially considering that he would probably _become_ the historic Salazar Slytherin, and he thought the man to be at least slightly evil, even with history's bias- while Apollo seemed to be wishing to let him mull everything over, in the hopes he would respond positively, or he could merely be wondering what exactly Harry meant by 20/20. Just like with Sherlock, one probably could never truly tell what Apollo was thinking in that moment.

Just then, Hermione woke up. The silence, which had been somewhat companionable, suddenly became awkward, and Harry tried to get out of the bed, only to almost collapse onto the floor the moment his feet were bearing his weight on the ground. Luckily, Apollo caught him, and then helped him walk across the floor, to what looked like a modern restroom; Harry wondered if that meant wizards were once more technologically advanced than Muggles, and then decided he did not really care, as his full bladder was more of a worry currently.

~Apollo's POV~

The young man- Harry, his friend said his name was- was completely unprepared to walk, so I assisted him. It was rather interesting to see his dogged determination. From the back, he looked like a sickly version of Salazar. I doubted his companion could hear the quiet hissing Harry was subconsciously doing- just as he had subconsciously had a conversation in Parseltongue- but I could. Some of the profanity made no sense; for example, who the _"lily livered lout who lived upstairsss"_ was, was unknown to me (and I had no clue what he meant by upstairs), although I had a feeling that Harry was either religious or agnostic. Or it could be the Fates he was speaking of; he seemed to have had a prophecy hanging over his head before then, with the marking on his forehead. I had only seen that mark once before, on my older son's chest. Salazar never got to meet him, as he died to bring down a Dark Lord _he_ was prophesized to kill, but I at least had a granddaughter, Ariel, through him. She was promised in marriage to the Gaunts, to bring honour to their bloodline, but I was rather against it; they rather like to interbreed with each other, leading to progressively stupider and weaker wizards. Her grandmother arranged the match, as Polina, Ariel's mother, had been promised in marriage to one of them before she fell in love with young Loki, and they had eloped at the tender age of 30. Because she and all her descendants were bound to it, Ariel has to marry the Gaunts, or suffer to see her children- all of them- marry the Gaunts. She is still a couple months shy of 13, as she was born mere days after Salazar's first Christmas, in Scandinavia.

Personally, I hope she dies before she has to bear them children, as I do not want to have her suffer, seeing her children, who should be so bright, proud, and powerful, be weak imbeciles, as is the common trait within the Gaunt bloodline. I know I will suffer, seeing my great-grandchildren like that, and I do believe Polina will kill herself before seeing her vibrant daughter's children be so colourless. After all, she was so against the marriage that she left her family to explore the world the day after the contract was announced. She wound up in Hogsmeade, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Harry was so like Salazar, it was rather scary. It was my older son with that same scar, and he lacked the strange eyes Salazar had. After all, Salazar had developed them by the time he was ten, and it fixed his horrible eyesight, just as it seemed Harry had. He _had_ squinted at me, to try to see me better. If Salazar had not become an Animagus so early in life, I would wager his eyes would have been the exact same as Harry's.

And the face he made as he was thinking- really _thinking_. I can remember Salazar's face looking the same way. I had a feeling that he would be trying to figure out all he could about me, and, for a fleeting second, I hoped his eyesight was as poor as Salazar's would have been, so that he would not think poorly of me, as Salazar had started to do. Shaking it all off, -it had to have been because I was powerless to stop the spattergroit, and he did not truly mean it- I waited for Harry to finish in the lavatory.

I almost did not hear his friend, Hermione, pad over toward me, rather silently. I could see how Hippolyta thought she could be a replacement for her daughter, but I also could see a few differences; her hair was bushier, and her eye shape was somewhat different. Her eyes were brown, not blue. She sort of had the same figure as Rowena when she died, but was a year older, and a couple inches taller. Looking at her objectively, I began to wonder if I was only seeing Salazar in Harry because that is what I wanted to see. Deciding I could mull over that later, I caught her just as she stumbled and fell.

"Apollo Slytherin, milady. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance." She glanced at me, and then responded, "Hermione Watson, Lord Slytherin. I'm no lady!"

"Yet the Lupins are an esteemed Noble, magical family. Looking at you, I'd say your mother's last name is Pond?"

"Yes. Why do you ask?"

"True, nowadays they mostly produce Squibs, but some of the strongest witches and wizards of our time are Ponds. Where you do not look a Ravenclaw, I'd say that you look a Pond. Like several other strong magical families, their traits are rather dominant from generation to generation. Mother almost always looks like daughter, and father like son, unless one of the other stronger magical families contributed the other parent. They all have uncontrollably bushy hair, somewhat large front teeth, and a desire to know everything, which, from the way your fingers are shaped, I would say you share, as your hands are strong, yet your fingers somewhat longer than average. You had ink stains on your wrists, like one gets if they use a quill and ink often, and the luggage you arrived with seemed to be packed full of books." Hermione's realization that they had probably, unknowingly, told me of the future, had her gasp, and look at me, wide eyed. What I did not know at the time, but do now know, was that she was also surprised at how thoroughly I had deduced her, as only Harry or his father could be so thorough, so far as she knew (In her mind, I had suddenly become one Sherlock Holmes).

"Worry not, I did not look through your trunk too thoroughly; I merely accidentally removed whatever charm you put on it to make it lighter, and realized you must be either a rock collector or a bookworm. Given your pale skin, with maybe a slight tan, which seems to be fading quickly, as though you were forced to get some sun, and now are not being forced to, I decided the latter was more likely, due in no small part to the ink stains on your wrists, clothes, and the way the tan lines were shaped. Even I know not to meddle with the future, no matter how tempting it may seem. I also found the shattered remains of your time turner, as Hippolyta said you called it. I doubt it'll be taking you anywhere anytime soon. I druther that you'll probably just be pulled back into the future eventually, or maybe just live until your time, as no one can die before they are conceived. Indeed, I think, if something lethal were to happen to you, you'd be pulled back to your own time, and then die there, if you have enough magic for it, or sheer, dumb, luck would save you. It helps when a being is rather powerful, as you seem to be, to keep yourself there and avoid the misfortune by so-called dumb luck."

"So it is possible I'd see my father and uncle again?"

"Yes, I suppose it much more than likely. They may not know you as yourself for a time, or they may be grieving your disappearance, but you will probably see them again. You may be older than them when you next see them. We can teach you all sorts of things that hide aging, although you really do not need to do so, as we powerful beings actually age quite slowly, once we turn 15 or 16. Would you believe me if I were to say that I am almost into my eighth century? Many of us keep up a glamour after puberty; it is considered impolite to not do so, especially when consorting with Muggles. Because the Ravenclaws are like family to me, it is no longer impolite, especially since they choose not to wear any at my house, either. It is common practice to not come into contact with Muggles until we are out of puberty, allowing us to act as the children of our children, if need be. That is why we do not marry Muggles, unless it is true love, as the most powerful of us have quite substantially longer lives with less aging."

The deluge of information was getting to be too much, as I later learned, for even Hermione, causing her to be obviously glad when Harry stumbled out of the restroom. Together, they walked into the dining area, after I pointed out where it was to them.

Already seated at the table were Hippolyta and her husband; he held both her hands in one of his as she murmured to him urgently. He was thin, with eyes so brightly light blue, they almost looked what the two children later described as neon. With somewhat wild brown hair, and light freckles across his nose, Harry seemed surprised to see that he looked somewhat similar to Hermione; almost as much as the Lady Ravenclaw (Hermione had whispered her name to him as they walked in, somewhat negating the need for introductions). Indeed, Hermione looked as though she could be the offspring of the two, not that I am surprised, considering the Ponds, like the Potters, were offshoots of the Peverell family, instead intermixed with a few Ravenclaws, rather than Gryffindors.

"Lady Ravenclaw and Lord Peverell, may I introduce to you Harry James, of Houses Evans, Potter, and Holmes, and Hermione Jane, of Houses Lupin, Watson, and Pond? Harry, Hermione, this is Lord Thespis Peverell, and Hermione, you've already met Lady Hippolyta Ravenclaw, but Harry, this is she." Of course, Hippolyta already knew Hermione's families- I mentioned it once in passing after looking through her trunk, but she had no notes on Harry's families in them. I had merely gleaned them from his fever-induced mutterings during my shifts watching over the two, and a small experiment I did with my mother's family magic, to see if it was _that_ Evans family. I rather like dramatic reveals, after all, and claiming kinship with one of our time travellers in a way neither of them could pick up on seemed to be a good way to do so. Thespis, at least, looked incredulous. Hippolyta was merely unimpressed, and so I knew I would have to try harder next time around.

~Harry's POV~

"A pleasure to make your acquaintances." Having learnt manners from Sherlock (or, rather, John and Mycroft), I knew exactly what to say in this sort of meeting. Hermione, having never been taught how to introduce herself in such a way, as there had never been any reason for Mycroft to teach her about such formalities, shot me a thankful glance, and hummed in agreement. I was still annoyed about the reveal- which seemed to be similar to one of Sherlock's dramatic reveals- as it caused a wave of homesickness to spread through me.

"Nay, I say, the pleasure is all mine. You two are practically the spitting image of our children, even if you are more quiet and reserved than they. Young Rowena would probably be bouncing off the walls right now, whilst-"

"Whilst Salazar would be attempting to deduce about us without being obvious. You, at least, Harry, are not being obvious, even if all the subtle hints are present." If I could see, then it would be less obvious, but, with my glasses broken, I had to squint, making my scrutiny more obvious. The Hat almost did not even notice my cunning, placing me into Ravenclaw at the last second, instead of Gryffindor, upon realizing what a Slytherin I am. I would probably make all the Gryffindors run home, crying, within days of being sent to live there. Indeed, as it seemed subtly is lost on even the Slytherins, Ravenclaw may well be the home for true Slytherins in the Hogwarts of modern times. At least the other Ravenclaws would not be bothered by the truest of the true Slytherins. They were too busy studying and worrying about inane things, like grades, as a whole. In my mind, that was part of the reason Luna was so wonderful; she actually cared about the world around her. As the Hat so aptly put it, the baby Slytherins would probably have run home crying as well, if they had needed to dorm with me.

I was happy to have seen Hermione placed into Ravenclaw as well. I was called up as a Holmes, because the Holmes family name came from an ancient Celtic tribe of magicians, giving it precedence over the family of Potter, of which I am the heir, which was a few decades older than the Pond family. The Evans was originally a Celtic family that intermixed with the Romans, giving them a slightly lower standing in Magical Scotland (or so geneaology books claimed. I could fin nothing else on my mother's family). Plus, the name Holmes was my father's name, instead of my mother's. One day, long ago, the Holmeses were all executed for practicing witchcraft, and the only survivor was a little boy who had no magic, and thought it to be a baseless accusation. Eventually, he married someone else, and soon the family name made its way to Sherlock, who then went to Hogwarts the same year as John, or, as he was called in those days, Remus. Remus had a one-night stand with a "Muggle" woman, named Rose Pond, leaving her pregnant with Hermione and no way to contact him. He moved into the Muggle world when my mother and adopted father were killed, vowing to leave all that behind him. He chose to go by John (his middle name) Hamish (in honour of James) Watson (his mother's surname), and soon had found himself in Afghanistan as a doctor. I still found it somewhat strange that a person would so fully turn his back on magic that he didn't even bring his wand with him to war. It was then that I realized that I was stuffing food into my mouth as politely as possible (another lesson from Uncle Mycroft), and they were all waiting for me to say something.

"Please repeat whatever it was you just said. Or, better yet, ignore me. Hermione can attest to the fact that I can go silent for days, weeks, even, on end. Once I went a whole two months without speaking outside of answering the teacher, or even noticing anything more than the hallway I was walking down. She often answers in my stead, as we tend to not keep secrets from each other." I turned back to the food, trying to remember where I was in my thoughts prior to being so rudely interrupted.

"It is true. The first time it happened, I thought he was mad at me, so I was rather hurt. My father explained about the quirks of both Harry and Sherlock, and soon I understood that it was nothing personal." She rolled her eyes, then grinned at me. "Of course, Harry freaked out when he found out we had both been accepted to the school our fathers went to, as he thought we wouldn't have enough magic to go there. As though he were a Squib or something, despite Sherlock's assurances to the contrary."

"You speak of this Sherlock often." That was Thespis. I gave up on not following the conversation, as it had become too interesting to not pay attention to. I deduced, correctly, I assume, from Hermione's blush, that she had spoken of my father at length, or at least, in relationship to our adventures. "Who is he?"

"Sherlock is my biological father. Like the Slytherin family, he rather enjoys deducing things about people, and is tall, with dark hair and green eyes, although his are rather _blue_ _and_ green. His best friend goes by John Watson, although everyone in the Wizarding World knows him as Remus Lupin. John also happens to be Hermione's father. We met each other when we were 8 or 9 years old, when Hermione's mother brought her to the flat for the first time, after finding out that John was back from Afghanistan. He had moved in less than a month before, but had started blogging. She had seen his blog, and tracked us down from there. She wanted John to have a larger role in raising Hermione, that much was obvious, although she did not seem to want him to do anything more than pander to her whims of making Hermione a spoilt little princess. Soon, she met someone else, and coerced John into taking full custody of Hermione, so that her romance could continue. Thus, _two_ children began to go to the crime scenes found by Sherlock, despite John's protests. John recently moved out, into his own place, bringing Hermione with him, while I stayed at my uncle's sister's place. You see, my father faked his own death last year, although John still does not know that it was faked. The only reason Hermione knows the truth is because I told her, about ten minutes into the journey to school, as she kept giving me pitying looks. We were planning to tell her father in about a month, if he did not realize it by then. It is probably a good thing Sherlock likes to keep his facades up, or else he would probably crack, and tell John within moments, as he can't seem to keep anything interesting to himself for longer than a short time, making him too dissimilar from the perception of the name Slytherin to - well, never mind. If you don't know, sort of, what I would've said, I'll tell you in twenty-five years."

"Next question- what is this?" He held up my wand. "I can feel the dormant magic within this, but I cannot tell exactly what it is; it most reminds me of the magical drainage tools we use for our children, whose magic is too powerful, or to train them in how to reach their magic. I can tell you both are powerful, but you both ought to be too old to need one of these, unless you had an accident recently."

"Well, Harry did inflate someone not three months ago, when his magic got away from him-"

"-but it was the first time in more than 5 years that I have lost control so spectacularly." Hermione looked at me, as though to ask if I am serious.

"You are aware that spectacular means breaking glasses-"

"You do that, too!" And she does, even if it happens to me more often. However, Hermione continued as though she had not heard me, a skill she obviously picked up from my father, as hers is usually too polite to do so.

"-and whenever something really bad happens, the house elves have to clean up and replace all the glasses along the Gryf- the table! And that is a long table! As well as several other pieces along our own table, and the other tables around us-"

Deciding that, as she did not ever seem to even need to stop for breath (sometimes I wondered if she had gills hidden somewhere under her clothes), the only way I could be heard was if I were to insert things into what she was saying, ignoring that she is speaking, I began to speak as well. Might as well start to emulate my father, if she is not going to be polite about a debate, after all.

"And yet, whenever something is floating, shaking, or shivering, everyone looks to you! I admit, yes, I tend to break glass when I'm angry, but at least things aren't flying around my head like they do around yours-"

"-completely irresponsible, I say, as you do not even _try_ to control it!- But no, it's the splendid Harry Holmes, so he can do no wrong-"

"-even though the teachers don't get mad, because it's the genius Hermione Lupin, so she can do no wrong, even when there are first years running in fear-"

"-even when there is broken glass on the ground, and little first years, running in fear from flying shattered glass-"

"-and that time you made one of the desks in Flophart's classroom explode from annoyance with him- yeah, that _was_ _not_ a spectacular display of magic! Professor Flitwick claims that Morgan le Fay herself could not have created such a magical reaction if she had wanted to!" I was done, momentarily, but Hermione it seemed, still had loads more to say.

"-and do not get me started on what you did to that troll! You vanished its brain, and then, somehow, managed to float off it as gravity sped up for it, knocking it out of its misery! And then, the basilisk!" I remembered something. It was something that would help my case in comparison to hers, so I said it as well, ignoring manners. Those aren't really necessary when one is trying to make their own point anyway, as proven by her not allowing me to refute her claims. I don't think she even paid attention to the way in which I had refuted her before, but she did not need to; it was all for Apollo, Thespis, and Hippolyta to judge.

"You went looking in the library, alone, to confirm your suspicions about what it was, and then, instead of just letting a teacher, or, you know, Madame Pince, know what you thought it was, and sitting in the library with your eyes shut, you go looking around all the corners with a mirror; not just the one you're planning on turning down! I almost think you wondered what it felt like to be petrified! Of course I had to investigate after that!"

"-I've heard your version of the story, and I believe it much more than that one that that lout Ronald Weasley was spreading about, but I still doubt you were able to make a sword appear out of a _hat_ , of all things. Honestly! And then, somehow, miraculously surviving a bite from a basilisk, of all things, you ought to be dead, and oh, Harry!" She seemed done with her rant, probably having run out of steam over her worry about me, a tendency that many young women appear to have; the only group that has it more so would be the grandparents, or at least their generation.

Mrs. Hudson, after all, was not our housekeeper, nor my grandmother, despite her wish to lay claim to such, as it would mean laying claim to Sherlock as her son, and she just was not ready for that. Those are obviously her words, not my own, but they rather do apply well enough, I suppose. I sort of wished for it to happen, though. Then I could finally come clean about where all those odd smells and concoctions come from (and explain the odd bangs, smoke, and noises), which would possibly make Sherlock less defensive, making her like him more. Her liking him more would cause her to be willing to lay closer claim to him, and thus she would be a mother figure of the sort that I believed him to severely lack. My paternal grandmother was nice, but a little too aloof for regular grandparently things, and my maternal grandmother died before my mother did.

The rest of the meal passed almost in silence on my part. I think everyone else thought I was sulking that Hermione had seemingly won the debate through cheap tactics (as I was the one given a scolding, not her). Truly, I was thinking about how I could try to see better- surely there was a potion for that?- but decided the closest I could come without telling anyone else would be to use the Supersensory Charm (well, I'd have to ask Hermione if I could borrow her books to try to find it, but she wouldn't care).

After all, that is what my father uses every day, to help him in his deductions. Uncle Mycroft claims he cheats with it, but Sherlock and I agree that it is not cheating if we use every available skill to pull our deductions, as we don't have as much access as he does to the files about everyone. Technology does not work well for either of us, although Sherlock still tries to use it, with varying degrees of success. Uncle Mycroft dislikes it when Sherlock fries his newest phone, or the new computer he had been setting up, but I think Uncle Mycroft is also curious about what does and does not blow up around us. A telephone from the 1900's works, for example, although anything newer than that usually does not.

You see, we have figured out that the reason electronics go crazy around us is that everything around us, if we use much magic around it, has the partial charges switched around, resulting in things that used to work falling apart due to the lack of partial. In short, electromagnetic fields did not work around us when they were crucial to make a piece of technology work, until the moment we wanted to complete an experiment that required them to not work, at which point the sample would not cooperate with our wishes.

Therefore, not using magic is not an option. At least there is the positive that Mycroft has to rely on grainy footage from cameras from the late 1910's; the sort we can see to cover up, if we want to.

Drinking milk actually makes it easier to use phones enough to be able to text. Milk dampens the effect of magic on anything, for some reason Sherlock has yet to find, but both Sherlock and I were powerful enough that most of what we wanted to do with magic would work, even if we did drink milk. The finicky electronics do not work for us, and so we substitute with magic when that happens.

However, those who were almost unable to use magic could not manage anything but the weakest of spells if they drank milk with the regularity that Sherlock, John, Hermione, and I do. John was especially lucky, because it helped to keep the wolf under his control. Sherlock hypothesized that, if John were to only drink milk for an entire month, the wolf would be rather weak, maybe even weak enough that John wouldn't transform.

John liked his tea and coffee a bit too much for that, and then he went to Hogwarts to teach this year, where there was very little dairy of any sort, as there were so many magically weak, "purebred", inbred idiots, who, if they drank any dairy, would probably be unable to use magic.

I wondered if they drank milk in this time, then decided that, as they all appeared to have rather strong bones, they did, to some extent, although probably not the weekly five half-gallons that Sherlock and I manage to the regularity that Mrs. Hudson tends to order it from an actual milk man.

I did drink a large amount of it (maybe a quarter of the milk), but Sherlock was the main milk drinker in the family. He claimed that if I drank too much now, it could "stop up" my magic, causing it to burst out of me randomly once I was magically mature.

I thought that Sherlock may have had that problem at some point, although I never could prove it, and I did not really care to do so, because it made little difference to me. After all, I doubt that it caused me to be less powerful, and it really makes my life easier, because then I do not have to worry so much about any overconsumption of milk in the subject most call Sherlock Holmes, or, if you are talking to Scotland Yard, the freak.

At first, I did not believe Sherlock when he said he was my father. It took him taking me to a crime scene, and being called "the freak" that I realized, yes, he was my father. I look too much like my mother for me to be the spitting image of Sherlock, although some of her features were similar to his, and could be nearly identical on a little boy, but the resemblance was present enough for them to declare the "freak had spawned". Their figuring it all out caused me to finally accept it. His nickname also helped me in accepting it, as "freak" was one of Uncle Vernon's favourite names for me. I do not think my father nor I react all to well to the work "freak", although we react better than some, like my uncle Mycroft on my father's behalf.

I'm pretty sure Hermione thought I was sulking; neither she nor her father understand that Holmes men do not sulk, as it is unbecoming. We instead descend into silence as we think about things. My father considers the way I think to be disorganized, but, just as his mind is always organized, mine has always been a jumble of thoughts. He has used Legilimency to try to help me try to organize it, but withdrew from my mind within moments of entering, because the chaos made his head hurt.

Since I had been trying to organize it since I was rather young, and it was actually more organized than it once had been, he sort of gave up, although I still try to keep it from being absolutely unorganized.

However, the result of my mind being in such a way is that my thoughts tend to wander; both faster than those of my father, and more randomly. We have about the same "thought efficiency", or pertinent thoughts per minute, but I have to sort through gunk that Sherlock usually does not pay attention to; he does force himself to look at the "gunk" as he meets someone, so he can understand them better. Sometimes I figure things out before him, because I notice those things to begin with.

Sometimes he says things that make me think my mother was not completely human. One of the times he did that was right after he tried to help me organize my mind, as he had tried to help her as well. I think he's accepted that I have a mind just as disorganized as my mother's; he just does not wish to admit that he, Sherlock Holmes, King of the Mind Palace, has a child who cannot manage even a Mind Hut, because he married and had offspring with such a woman.

After we finished eating, they shooed both Hermione and I back to bed, to sleep. But I could not sleep; my mind was moving too quickly, and even meditating did not help completely. I must have fallen asleep sometime, however, because I woke up, and was conscious that I had woken up.

~Hermione's POV~

Harry has been getting more introverted all year. Last year, he never got half as bad, but I guess that was because he was trying to help Luna Lovegood get settled into school. Something about their mothers being friends, and Luna being Lily's goddaughter, I believe, although with Harry, sometimes it is for odd reasons instead, which he does not feel important enough to mention to others. I wouldn't be surprised if she were his mother, reincarnated, and he had felt some sort of pull toward her, except for the fact that Luna was born before Halloween of 2001.

Looking at Harry, I cannot see how Lily Evans could have gotten herself Sorted into Gryffindor. I almost wonder if the Hat did not mess up, and sort her completely into the wrong House, or, maybe, she convinced the Hat that she would have fun in Gryffindor, and tricked the Hat into agreeing with her. Ironically, from what I've heard others say, she was still kind; probably, if I had met her without meeting her lover or son, I would have classified her as a Hufflepuff. If I had to say something about Sherlock's House, I'd actually say that he'd belong in Gryffindor. He lives in such a Dionysian state, accumulating and destroying hobbies with very little care for the timing of anything. Last year, my father had to floo call Dumbledore to come pick Harry up from the flat, because Sherlock was using Harry (or, in John's words, holding him hostage) as a science experiment.

Dad says Sherlock pouted for a week after that, but I don't believe him. I think he sulked for a month, as it took that long for him to reply to my letters.

I rather missed the two of them. I was glad Harry was there with me, as he was my best friend, but I missed my father and uncle, even if I did not miss my mother or stepfather. I was glad to be shot of those two, and would be excited to learn how to change how I look, if only to stop my mother from seeing me on the subway one day and trying to be my new best friend (which has happened multiple times, and is quite awkward. The worst was when she was drunk and on her way to a college party). Harry growing older alongside me was comforting, as it meant there would not be much that I would need to keep from him, which I knew would be emotionally difficult if he were not here.

That was my last conscious thought for the day, as I fell back asleep and slept for quite a while more.

* * *

 **I tried to do first person- really! But it annoys me, and I kept jumping around. So you have this result. I don't foresee myself trying that again (or, if I do, it'll make sense in the story, as it will be someone telling a story, or writing something, or something like that, within the story).**

 **Other than that, I don't really have much more to say. This chapter _is_ a lot longer (yay!), at a bit more than 8,500 words, so I suppose there's that. I have a few more chapters written, all closer to this length than the first chapter, but will probably wait at least a week or so to post the next one (I guess once I finish the next chapter I'm currently working on?). **

**Does anyone have any preference on length and/or timing? Obviously, the ratio of words/week will be about the same, but I know some people like lots of shorter chapters, updated every other day, while others prefer longer chapters every week or month or so (I promise I'll work to not have it be longer than a couple weeks between chapters). Any preferences out there?**

 **And any suggestions for this story as a whole? What made you decide to click on and read this story? What could I do better in the future?**


	3. A Study in Time- part 3

984 (A/N:Harry 13 going on 14, Hermione 14 going on 15)

Indeed, both children slept for close to two months more, without waking up. Thespis was about to dig through Hermione's trunk when they woke up, as he was trying to figure out when they were from. Hippolyta kept telling him not to do so, delaying him by a short while each time.

All three adults spent much of that time debating everything they could glean from the two children. Apollo, especially, was helpful in pointing out too-obvious details about the two of them, such as the slight amber that had been present in Hermione's eyes, implying someone in her family was a werewolf, but she had not gotten that particular curse.

According to Apollo, Harry had an uncanny similarity to the Foundling of the Hufflepuff family, as they both were somewhat on the petite side for their ages, and had rather too-youthful looking faces. Combined with the overlarge, overly vibrant eyes they both shared, Apollo postulated that Harry was rather closely related to her, or that both had a similar sort of relationship to an elf- probably, he postulated, around half, with their other half being human, or someone with not enough elvin blood to make the change into an elf themselves.

It was common knowledge amongst the Noble Wizarding families that she had come from mysterious origins whilst a toddler, and the Hufflepuffs had taken her and her rather weak mother in. Her mother had died merely a year earlier, although she had given her blessing upon their arrival in the past for her daughter to become a part of a local family. She would be officially adopted the 12th day of the 12th month of this particular year by the Hufflepuffs.

Apollo was interested to see what happened with her. The ritual they had started with her mother's permission had already made her hair grow in strawberry blonde, and her baby blue eyes had darkened to be almost black, as was common in the Hufflepuff family. There wasn't much left to do, besides adjusting her magic to fit into that of her new family, which could either go well or poorly. No one knew yet how it would go, obviously, although her physical appearance made it seem like she would be adopted without any problems. Usually, if there would be a problem, they would not begin to show the family traits as readily as this small girl did.

He would keep it quiet if he were to blood adopt Harry into his family, with only the Ravenclaws knowing the truth, but he still wondered if anyone else would figure it out. After all, he doubted Harry would grow as tall as his son had been, as Salazar had been taller than Apollo himself, when he was merely 12 years old.

Harry's glasses, which Hippolyta tried to repair, once Hermione had described what they were for, had been another clue about the two of them. They were nice glasses, even if a little plain, and seemed to be the right prescription for Harry. He was obviously loved and cared for, but with an air of forgetfulness, if the sticky substance that seemed to have been holding them together was any indication. He also had seemed rather used to being pretty much self-sufficient. When their go-to charms had failed to fix the eyeglasses, they had instead tried to transfigure a pair that would work, to no avail.

The next step for them was to create some Polyjuice Potion. Hippolyta became Hermione, to see if she had any medical problems that needed immediate attention. Apollo did the same for Harry, and was shocked at the massive headache he got from the Polyjuice.

Usually, one kept their own mind when using Polyjuice, but, when the donator was not completely human, but human enough that it'll work, it could reorganize a person's mind drastically. Some people had been driven mad by accidentally using elf hairs in Polyjuice. Some people who had already been mad were driven further into insanity by doing the same (or doing so purposely in the interest of furthering their learning). One infamous wizard was now locked up in a dungeon to keep him from going on a rampage due to using troll hairs.

Apollo was part elf to begin with. He lacked the blood to turn completely into an elf, as was common at a person's magical majority, overruling any other blood in a person, but had enough that his mind was able to drive a human crazy; an elf's mind, however, would still annoy him, and his mind would seem relatively simple in comparison, if an elf were to take Polyjuice to become him. With the ensuing headache, Apollo confirmed his suspicions that Harry was part elf.

The Legilimency and Occlumency that Hermione had spoken of were unheard of in this time; Apollo reasoned that they could be one of the rare "gifts" from Magic, or, in this case, Time.

Sometimes, when people otherwise would be unable to do something, like managing the first Animagus transformation in recorded history, someone young would come from the future, and teach it, accidentally, to others, because they had already learned it from someone, who, separated by many, many people, learned it from themselves, creating a problem that the only answer to was that Magic, or Time, willed it to appear then. Other times, a person would just happen upon how to do something that had eluded people for centuries, without doing much actual work toward it.

He assumed that these two branches of magic would then be "devised" by either Harry or Hermione, so that they wouldn't have to hide that knowledge.

The headache took a few days to subside, during which time he'd often speak solely in Parseltongue, much to the amusement of Hippolyta. The amusement did wear off after the second or third day, soon replaced by annoyance, but Apollo was lucky enough that it wore off before she could eviscerate him. It helped his case that he stayed as silent as he could the last day.

A little known fact about elves was that they could speak any natural language, if they heard it within twenty years of their birth.

Because reptiles and dragons (and birds) were relatively common, it sort of became a part of their DNA to just automatically understand them. The dragons became dumber, but those that were elves could still speak Parseltongue, because it wasn't necessarily a bad ability, and so they continued to not choose others who couldn't. The elves even developed a written language for it, which they found, to their glee, that one without a drop of elf blood could never understand, but any with elf blood could look at and read it without even knowing how to read. Apollo's mother's familial books were mostly in Parseltongue, handed down through the generations, and he hoped that the coming generations would learn Parseltongue through them. They were one of the few things he had still from his mother, and one of the only things he had of her natal family, the Evans Clan.

Harry seemed to have many horrible dreams, and would sometimes cry out in Parseltongue. Apollo refused, directly, to repeat, in English, what Harry said, and neither Hippolyta nor Thespis could understand more than the rudimentary words, like "food", or "help!". Thespis could also distinguish many of the curse words, because Salazar would teach them to Ro, and she soon began trying to mimic them. They came out wrong to a Parselmouth, but, to a human ear, it sounded the same.

Harry swore a lot in his dreams, according to Thespis. Apollo refused to agree, which, in itself, was confirmation enough for Hippolyta.

Hermione seemed more peaceful, just sleeping, although she would sometimes grab Harry closer, using him like a child would an oversized stuffed animal or favourite blanket.

During the time they were asleep, many things happened. First, Samhain passed; then it was the very end of the harvest, and time for the Harvest Festival. Finally, it was time for the youngling to be adopted (the adoption happened quite successfully, and she took on a new name, by which the common magicals were told they could only call her by). Sometime during that time, the translation charm wore off the two sleeping teens, although none of the adults even considered that.

On top of the regular bursts of magic that all teens would gain every few days from their surroundings, things would sometimes shatter randomly around the two, or shake, or change colour. Hippolyta moved the bookcase out of the bedroom, and they worked to decrease the things kept in the room, to try to keep them safe, but it didn't completely work. Of course, their uncontrolled bursts seemed to keep them safe anyway, as sometimes shields of light would appear to protect them, or some colour or other would flash, and a cut or bruise from an earlier injury would disappear.

In short, neither of them had unconscious control of their magic, and that worried Apollo. Even younglings could usually control their magic without even realizing it, even when utterly exhausted. But these two seemingly had magic seeping out of their pores, and the additional magic from puberty was making their cores grow too quickly. The only people who survived to their age who had such limited control of their magic were the Gryffindors, and neither of the two children were closely related to the Gryffindors, as far as they had let on. Hermione had mentioned Harry was adopted by the Potters, but not born of them, which would dilute the other family magics, even those closely related to the Potters, or absorbed by the Potters within recent times, as it sounded the Gryffindors had been.

The first thing they would need to learn is how to hold their magic in, as it was vital for the adoption ceremony, which would give them both "double cores", or two cores, connected by one thin thread of magic. It would be vital because their magic could not join in on the ceremony until a certain point, or else they could end up adopting those hoping to adopt them, which would ruin the lines of succession, and not allow any of them access to the family grimoires. Apollo guessed that, as Harry seemed to have some Potter features, he had been blood adopted into the Potter family at some point in time, probably when he was a baby, if what Hermione had said about his adopted father was true. Therefore, he had at least slight control when he was rather young, or there was a different ceremony in their original time. One of them would maybe even have a book from their time with the correct ritual in it, but the adults were done going through their trunks without their permission. Apollo had only gone through Hermione's because he had accidentally removed the featherlight charm, and was curious as to what else was in there, to try to figure out her and her companion's identities.

It was during those months they slept that Apollo actually compared the two of them to images of their children. The differences they had once skimmed over were startling, once they noticed them.

Besides the difference in their eyes, Hermione's hair was way more bushy, and slightly more dark blond than brown, like Rowena's had been. Harry's hair was even wilder than Salazar's, and it appeared to be untameable, even with water flattening it, trying to get it to stick to his head.

Despite having aristocratic features, Harry did not quite have the almost-an-elf look that Salazar had had, and Apollo was beginning to wonder if there was a fluctuating glamour around Harry, obscuring his true parentage for some reason or another, as he had been the spitting image of his son mere weeks before, when he reviewed his memories of both boys. Hermione's chin was slightly stronger than Rowena's, and her nose a smidge smaller. This closer inspection had been good for Apollo, and, when he told Hippolyta and Thespis, for them as well. They stopped seeing replacements for their dead children in the two teens, and started to instead see them as foundlings they could adopt as their heirs, people in their own right. All three could see that both children would go far if they applied themselves. They both had massive magical cores, and seemed very intelligent, and while Harry had the ambition, and the ability, to achieve his wildest dreams, Hermione seemed ready to take on the world alone, and dominate. They all knew she would probably never have to be alone, as Harry's greatest ambition, from the way they were interacting, was to keep Hermione safe and happy. Whenever he wasn't spacing out, he was trying to protect Hermione; he even did so unconsciously, as, whenever a dream concerning Hermione came about, he would pull her closer to himself, as though trying to shield her from something horrible.

Rarely did Harry have any good dreams, it seemed. He was almost always thrashing around, having some sort of nightmare. The Ravenclaws especially worried about him, as he seemed so weak to begin with, as though he had unconsciously protected Hermione from some of the magical backlash from coming back in time more than a thousand years, and then falling close to 200 feet. They worried he would die, from magical exhaustion, leaving Hermione alone. By comparison, Hermione's dreams seemed rather sweet; maybe a wee bit too fluffy for Thespis' tastes, but still rather nice, overall.

Over the months, they both lost some weight, despite the food the adults were spelling into their stomachs. Neither seemed to do much more than sleep and let loose random bursts of magic with the advent of either an extremely positive or negative dream. The adults learned quickly that Hermione's blasts, although less frequent, were often more frightening, as they involved pyrotechnics and fluctuations in the weather, both inside and outside the house. Harry made things fly, broke things, and changed the colour of things around him. Sometimes bugs, flying in the room, would become larger or smaller, although none of the adults could figure out which one it was doing that.

The months were rather exhausting for the adults, especially with Harry's wild dreams creating a chance for him to bump his head on the furniture or floor at any point of the day. They split the day into four parts, and began spacing their meals out evenly, every 6 hours. One of them would cook and clean, shop, and otherwise carry on, sometimes napping and sometimes helping those on other shifts, for six hours, and then the next would do the same, and so on, and so forth. One six hour chunk was for sleeping, and one was to watch the two teenagers sleep, and wake the others if they needed help containing them to the bed. The last was one of those three, so that they could rotate who was seen out and about.

The last few weeks before they awoke, they settled down, although bursts of magic still happened, changing the colours in the room, resizing various objects around them, and, once, making the ball of yarn Hippolyta was using to knit never-ending. The more benign magic made them safer, and Harry's dreams became less and less frequent, so the adults began leaving them alone, with only monitoring wards around them, to let them know if they needed anything. They also brought most of the furniture back into the room. It took a couple weeks, but, finally, the teens woke up again.

* * *

Harry woke first. He seemed rather disoriented, looking around wildly for a few moments before noticing Hermione next to him. Upon noticing how peacefully she slept, he relaxed, pulling her closer to him by a small margin.

It was one of the increasingly common moments none of the adults were present. Hippolyta had gone to the first market of the new year, Thespis was at a meeting with Baron Gryffindor, concerning Apollo taking on the young Gavin Gryffindor as a squire in a few years time, and Apollo was visiting his wife's grave, as it was the anniversary of her death.

Looking around, Harry found it was a little easier to place his surroundings now he was actually awake. There were a couple of paintings on the walls of the room, which seemed to encompass the bed, a desk, a wash closet, a wardrobe, and not much else. The lone bookshelf took up almost an entire wall, and seemed to be crammed full of books.

Hermione woke up soon thereafter, stretched, and snuggled into Harry's chest, seemingly thinking he was still asleep.

"Hello, sleepyhead. How was your sleep?" As Harry thought, Hermione tensed, then relaxed, recognizing Harry's voice, and feeling the vibration of his words on her cheek. She beamed up at him.

"It was restive, I guess. How did you sleep?"

"I guess I slept well. It sure does not seem to be early October any more."

"Why do you say that?"

"It was still almost warm in October. I don't know about you, but I'm freezing cold. I don't know about myself, but you look like you haven't chewed anything for a long time, and your muscles seem somewhat atrophied. I feel weak, physically, and probably also am magically weak. And my jaw hurts from just this talking."

"Now you say it, I do notice you don't look the picture of health."

They laid there for a bit, leaning against each other, and just marvelling in the fact that they were alive about 1000 years before their birth. Their tranquil silence was interrupted by noises from the next room over as the front door opened and then shut. There was the noise of something being set down, and then their door opened, and in walked Hippolyta.

Her long, braided hair was falling out of the braid, with tendrils framing her face. She looked worried for a second, seeing both of them sitting up, until she noticed both were also awake.

She spoke in almost-English for a moment, sighing when they looked at her, confused. Hermione especially looked at her questioningly, but she shook her head as though to say she could not perform the same spell again.

Together, they settled down to wait for Apollo to get back, and Hippolyta hoped that he would not be too overcome with grief to translate. Thespis would only be able to translate the inappropriate words, of the sort Hermione would chide Harry for, and there was no way for them to communicate back to the two children. Hippolyta began to try to brainstorm how to get the two children fluent in the language of the time efficiently enough for no one to notice the difference when they finally made it to the right time to come back forward as "Rowena" and "Salazar". The spell had already worn off- she had thought they would be able to use the spell for longer, and that the teens would not pass out for over 3 months- and so now she was stuck. Her sister Rowena would have been able to figure something out, but, of course, she was gone, and would never help Hippolyta with problems like this ever again.

Sometime while they waited for Apollo, all three of them drifted off to sleep. When Thespis arrived home, it was to find Hippolyta asleep in the chair next to the large bed, and the two teens asleep as well. He pulled a blanket around Hippolyta, and tenderly kissed both the teens on the forehead, causing Hermione to roll toward him, and away from Harry, just the smallest bit. He took the chair on the other side of the bed, and held Hermione's hand, gently stroking his thumb across her face.

"You may not be my little Ro, but you'll be my beautiful daughter 'Mione." The past few months had been horrible for him; for Thespis, it was like Rowena had appeared from a thousand years in the future, and then, over time, become not-Rowena. Of course he loved Hermione, already, for her own merits (privately, he thought whoever got through him, and then her biological father when she returned to the future, would be a very lucky man), but she was so much like Rowena that it actually hurt a little each time he looked at her.

He vowed he would not allow her to die like the original Rowena, kissed her brow once more, and then, gently setting her hand on Harry's knee, stood up and walked back over to the main room to start cooking dinner. Apollo would be over soon, and would need something to eat. At least there would be good news of several sorts over dinner, as Gawain Gryffindor was excited for Apollo to take on his son as a squire.

Thespis was just finishing preparing the table for the meal when Apollo staggered in the door, looking around to see whom he would encounter. He sat down at the table heavily, and Thespis joined him a little more quietly.

"It looks like the children woke up for a while today."

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, Hippolyta is not out here, and I do not hear her pacing in the other room, indicating she is sitting in one of the chairs in the room, or maybe on the foot of the bed. You look slightly more relieved, although not as much as you would have if you had seen them awake; just relieved that they seem to have moved consciously, which would have of course required them to be conscious."

"And you get all that while distracted by other matters? I definitely see your mind is close to that of an elf's."

"Nonsense- it merely takes concentration on a system of organization for your mind to become more efficient. It becomes easier with time." Thespis rolled his eyes, muttering something to the effect of "easier for you, maybe", and then stood up.

"I'm going to go alert Hippolyta that the meal is ready. Would you come with me, in case the children are awake and need help?"

"Indeed I shall."

And, indeed, both the teens had just woken up again. Hippolyta was still dozing, although Thespis was able to wake her rather quickly. Upon explaining the problem to Apollo, he quickly agreed to translate for the children.

 _"_ _Hippolyta ssayss the transsslation ssspell wore off whilssst you two ssslept. I'll transsslate for you while we try to find a sssolution."_

 _"_ _I thank you for that."_ Apollo then instructed the two to sit up, and he would help Harry to the table, while Thespis helped Hermione. It was obvious to Apollo that Thespis had a lot of work, as Hermione had that faraway look in her eyes, that showed she was really thinking about something else. It showed in how often she stumbled to the table. Harry, in contrast, had a single-minded determination about getting to the table. Occasionally, his weak muscles would cause him to stumble as well, causing him to swear in either Parseltongue or his native language. The former sometimes surprised Apollo in the vibrancy of the curse, and sometimes Hermione would scold him for the latter. Apollo doubted anyone else could hear the Parseltongue curses, because they were so quiet. He wondered if Harry could even hear them, and if he did, if he knew it was him saying it, and not Apollo.

Dinner was a quiet affair. Both adolescents were shovelling as much food as they could into their mouths, seemingly looking starved. Thespis had been surprised at how light Hermione was, as she looked a healthy weight.

Both children also seemed to have several glasses of milk, which worried Apollo. More than a glass or two could severely stunt a child's magical growth, and yet, these two were chugging it down like there was a surplus of milk.

Hippolyta finally put a stop to it, scolding them for trying to repress their cores so much. Of course, neither of them understood her, so Apollo had to translate it. Harry's adamant response shocked him, and then shocked the other two adults.

 _"_ He says his biological father, Sherlock, admonished them to drink several glasses of milk whenever they can, so as to keep a dampener on their magic. When he was younger, Sherlock figured it out when he instead made the milk vanish, and almost blew the roof off the home with an outburst of magic during a temper tantrum."

Hippolyta and Thespis looked at each, and Hippolyta sighed. "It may work for young children, but they are no longer young children, and need to learn some semblance of control. I would hate for a spell to go awry because they dampened their magic too much."

At Apollo's translation, Harry scowled but nodded, before looking at Hermione and telling her what they had said, and what he had agreed to.

After dinner, they were carried back to the bed, and guided in meditation to try to begin to control their magic by following what Hippolyta was doing. No verbal instructions were given, and both children fell easily into the meditation, as Sherlock had always enforced meditation for Harry, and, once she joined them, Hermione.

Once they felt their magic settle, Harry began reaching toward what he thought was Hermione's mind, as Sherlock wanted them to begin to try to figure out the mechanics behind Legilimency and Occlumency. The yelp that happened when he accessed it- and the unfamiliarity of it- told him he had not reached toward Hermione's mind, but rather Hippolyta's. He pulled out quickly, but not before he saw the love she had for both of them, and the fond exasperation (mixed with shock for him having accessed her mind), that he wasn't really doing what they had asked him to do. The love for them was overwhelming, and so he pushed some of it into the other meditating mind-, which, luckily, was Hermione's- so that she could experience it. Just as she was about to reciprocate, her mind vanished from his conscious, followed quickly by him being shaken out of his meditation.

The moment it was obvious he was cognizant of the world around him, Hippolyta began scolding him. It took Harry a moment to realize he understood her, to some point, although she was speaking too quickly for him to completely translate it. He held up his hand to Apollo, and looked him in the eye, nodding.

The words took a while for him to string together, but he was able to apologize to her. Hermione at first looked annoyed, but understanding began to dawn in her eyes as well.

"Young man, you must not let people into your mind; you'll drive them crazy, as surely as Polyjuicing as an elf would drive a human crazy."

"Hermione has been in my mind before, you know. And she is completely sane. Well, as sane as she was before she entered it the first time."

Harry, your mind is really chaotic. I get a headache every time I try to enter your mind. I understand what your father means by wild thoughts because of those experiences.

"Harry James, you startled me by poking into my mind. The mind is a very private place, and to have someone intrude without asking permission is rather rude. Add to that fact that your mind feels alien to mine, possibly because until now, it has been thought impossible to enter a person's mind, and I have no idea how you did it, and I'm justified in being angry. But, you are young yet, and so I will forgive you. Just take care it does not happen again."

Hermione's glare at him- a glare of annoyance, that he was trying to do something a man a thousand years in the future wanted him to do while they should be straightening out their cores instead- caused him to cave, and apologize again.

Deciding they had done enough that day, Hippolyta bid them sleep. Soon thereafter, they lapsed back into sleep.

The next morning, Hippolyta told them to stay in bed, and meditate while she made breakfast for them. They both did get rather far in their meditation, almost as far as they did when they were younger and Sherlock teaching them. Hermione finally, grudgingly, allowed Harry into her mind when they both felt they had control over their magic, so he could give her the information on how to speak the language of the time.

They then sat and conversed to each other (in French, as Sherlock had insisted the two of them be fluent in the language, and they figured they could catch each other's poor grammar at a later date, if they started then) until Hippolyta came back in with breakfast.

Upon seeing how calm their cores had become from such a short time meditating, Hippolyta knew there had to have been something else wrong for them to have lost control so often over the last few months. She wanted to find out, as quickly as she could, so they could be ready by July to be adopted. Both had seemed amendable to it, after all, and she rather liked the idea of having an heir again.

After breakfast, she asked Hermione if she was up to opening the trunks (Harry had drifted back to sleep), and maybe going through it all to find things that would be interesting to her husband without actually telling much of the future. Without Harry present to caution her otherwise, Hermione agreed.

For Hermione, opening the trunks was slightly anti climatic. They had the food they had brought, under preservation charms, which Hippolyta had seemed somewhat intrigued by. There was the virtual library of books, which, thanks to Harry entering her mind, Hippolyta could somewhat read. Hermione also kept her robes in there, folded neatly, with a shirt, skirt, and tie to wear underneath each one. Of course, she had the full range of socks, tights, stockings, and pantyhose that all female Hogwarts students were required to have. Folded on the bottom was her winter cloak. In a small bag were her "unmentionables" and feminine hygiene products.

Hippolyta, however, was looking at it all, rather shocked. Belatedly, Hermione realized that the robes all had the Ravenclaw House crest on them, and all seemed to follow the same color scheme as the same crest she had seen enamelled on the cutlery they had used the night before.

She hurriedly hid the robes under the stack of books she knew no one in this time should see (in fact, she would consider burning the entire trunk right then, because she should not try to cause anything to happen, which she knew she would do if given access to that knowledge). Then, she closed the trunk, gesturing to the supplies around her, and said, "I think these are all fine to use or look at. I daren't go in Harry's trunk right now. Knowing his father, I would not find it outside the realm of possibility for him to have people's fingers mixed in with his Potions' ingredients." Hippolyta's wide eyes met with Hermione's completely serious face, and widened when Hermione continued, "Plus, Harry is a bit keen to cross dress, and probably has more cosmetics within his trunk than I've owned in my life. Trust me when I say that you do not need to see that"

Trying to cover how shaken she was by that revelation, Hippolyta helped Hermione back to bed. The moment the door had closed, Harry opened his eyes and smirked at her.

Bit keen to cross dress? Really, Hermione, my father makes a stunning woman when he tries. I merely am a young boy, striving to emulate my father. Obviously... Hermione grinned and rolled her eyes.

Obviously. I had to come up with some reason for us not to open your trunk, you know. She didn't seem to believe me completely about the fingers, which I know are in there. That would have been more scarring than any possible amounts of cosmetics.

Because Sherlock is convinced that, when John finds out he is still alive, he will be punished by having his entire collection of fingers and toes stolen if he doesn't do anything to safeguard some of the more impressive specimens. Harry's indignant tone only served to make Hermione grin wider, and then roll her eyes again.

And God forbid the great Sherlock Holmes gets in any sort of trouble not of his own making, or choosing. Hippolyta came back in, and bid them both sleep more instead of talking. Reluctantly, they did as she bid them, falling quickly to dreams.

The next couple weeks went on in this way. Some days, it was Harry pulled out of bed to do something, others it was both, and sometimes, they were immediately bid to sleep. Every night, Apollo would come for dinner, and help Hippolyta teach both how to act like a Slytherin, just as Hippolyta taught both how to act as Ravenclaws during the day. Thespis taught both how to hold a "mask" over their faces, both with a glamour, and with actual facial expressions. These lessons were usually in the afternoon while they worked on learning what passed as German, Scottish Gaelic, Irish, French, and Spanish in those days, which Sherlock had deemed "unnecessary" because it was not prevalent enough in the early 21st century to help in understanding the motives of criminals. Harry honestly doubted he knew any of those archaic versions anyway, if only because it was usually irrelevant. His memory was such that, if he had ever needed to know it, he probably still remembered it all. After all, he remembered everything he saw or heard, ever (a feat John claimed as impossible, and Sherlock had refuted with his normal claim about impossibility and improbability).

Sometimes, Sherlock was frustrated he couldn't delete irrelevant information from his mind palace, as it would sometimes slow him down, but he still deduced some things faster than any other person around. Harry was working on beating him, but was still a ways off from doing so all the time. There were a few memorable occasions, but not much more.

Hippolyta was quite pleased with their progress in all the subjects the three adults were teaching them. The accent they both had was not quite noticeable any more, and Hippolyta postulated that, once they settled in (and looked like the people they supposedly were, causing no one to really listen for such an accent), it would disappear altogether. Her next concern would be to have Harry "grow" a Parseltongue accent, which led to many conversations between Harry and Apollo in Parseltongue.

The group spent the late evening learning all they could about modern England, if only because they wished to know as much as they could about it. In convincing the two that there was no harm in telling them of Hogwarts, the adults explained about the prophecy to the two students.

On the spring equinox, Apollo helped them to remove any glamours or other barriers to their bodies, claiming they needed to grow as they were meant to. As he had suspected, Harry had a permanent glamour that made him look older than he really looked. He also was shorter than most would think he ought to be, as all his family was rather tall. The removal of binders made Hermione's core stronger, and the fluctuations in their powers decreased appreciably.

When Hippolyta began looking at their cores, she was rather surprised when she realized the problem for them had been their wands. Both of them had very fine wands, once they explained what they were for, but they were too strong to use them, leading to the leakage they had experienced over the past few months. Their magic had to run off somewhere, and so the leakage was from them lacking inhuman (or, rather, non-mortal) control to keep their magic from flying about causing havoc. What she found strange was that they had almost complete control over it until they lost their tempers, or were scared, or running on adrenaline, and, of course, while asleep. Even having the control they did was not natural, although she was not complaining, as it meant they were quite powerful. Because using wandless magic did take a bit more out of them, their cores would be more stable and they'd know how to control their magic, having less leakage and better control, come July.

Hippolyta explained to them about the importance of numbers within rituals. They both- grudgingly- agreed that the seventh hour of the seventh day of the seventh month would probably be the best time to do the ritual, even if Harry was technically too young to do it. Upon finding out that they had arrived in August, moving their birthdays up about a month, both quickly agreed to do the ritual come that July.

They both practiced meditation to the point that they could control their magic completely while doing a separate task, just to make sure. Harry especially was excited to one day go home to tell Sherlock how to control magic enough to not destroy things. Hermione merely viewed it as a chance to live in either world, without accidentally ruining some multi-million pound experiment. As a result of controlling their magic so well, both began to drink only a glass or two of milk in any given day.

It wasn't until May that the adults began teaching them actual magic, and both found it quite difficult to grasp, as they were not allowed to use wands any more. The adults believed both of them could eventually figure it out, but it would take hard work. They started small, with things like lighting candles, or levitating feathers, and moved onto the more advanced things very slowly. Neither believed they would be able to progress to the point the adults were at by the time Hogwarts was reputed to have opened, at the rate they were going.

* * *

Harry and Hermione still shared a bed. It was only for comfort- both had seen too much to be completely stable all the time, especially in new situations. Sherlock had insisted they would grow out of it, and did not need a counsellor to help them through their memories. John had agreed, as Sherlock certainly seemed to know more about psychology than John. Nothing inappropriate had happened with them sharing a large bed, and neither teen saw any reason for that not to continue.

None of the adults thought it strange that the teens shared a bed until the first night they all went over to the Slytherin Manor, and were unable to share a bed, because Lady Elizebeth Slytherin insisted on a guest bed for the real Rowena, placing her across the hall from the real Salazar, when they were younger. There was not room in either bed for them to both lay comfortably.

It was Hermione having nightmares that night. She had not had a single one since they got to the past, but, that night, Harry was woken by a bloodcurdling scream, and knew she was probably dreaming of one of the cases they went on with Sherlock. He quickly ran to her room, and grasped her hand, trailing his other hand over her cheek, whispering to her that it was alright. She soon quieted down, and seemed to move to more peaceful dreams, but, even in sleep, would not let go of his hand. He crawled over her to lay by the wall, and she snuggled into his chest, finally releasing the vice-like grip on his hand. He fell asleep soon after. Hermione rolled over to use his body as an overlarge pillow, which would lead to aches for both of them the next morning.

The adults found them like that the next morning. Although Apollo and Thespis were amused, Hippolyta was not, saying that it was somewhat unbecoming for a young man to just climb into bed with a sleeping young lady, even if both were fully clothed. She forced them to use separate beds when they arrived back to the Ravenclaw cabin, which Harry and Hermione had realized would one day become the location of the Gamekeeper's Hut at Hogwarts. There was no castle in the distance, which for Harry and Hermione was more than a little daunting.

The first night, Hermione had horrible dreams, but Harry slept through her thrashing, because Hippolyta had set a silencing ward around Hermione's bed, and set another around Harry's. The night after, Harry had a horrible dream at the same time as Hermione, and, together, their magic caused the silencing wards to fail, and Thespis came running. He moved them both into the same bed, and both calmed down instantly.

The next morning, Thespis stood up to Hippolyta, and she grudgingly allowed them to share a bed, although Hermione started having to wear a chastity belt. Both teens believed her notions to be a little odd, even when Thespis explained that the Ravenclaw family had some Veela blood within their bloodlines, and so Hippolyta was merely trying to prepare Hermione for her adoption into the bloodline, in case magic decided Hermione deserved the honour of being part Veela.

Separately, Hippolyta explained to Hermione about the creature background of Rowena. She had been part Veela, as proven by her bright blue eyes, slightly pyromaniac-like tendencies, and love for the air. However, she was also part fae, a race of beings that, although elf-like and descended from the elves, were not usually able to speak Parseltongue, or speak to other types of animals, even if they did have a flair for learning all human languages they encountered before they had experienced their birthday 33 chronological years after they were born. They were prone to accidentally travelling through time, much like Hermione already had, but also were very likely to pick up diseases from the times they went to that did not exist in their own time, then being forcibly pulled back to their time to spread the disease and die. That was how Rowena had contracted spattergroit- she had ended up in pre-Roman times, gotten infected, and brought back, unknowingly, one of the most incurable illnesses known to wizardkind. Salazar had gotten it off her, and everyone else wore a Bubblehead charm around her, to be relieved of the smell of a dying person. It was merely luck that she had reappeared out where he was camping, in the middle of what would become Russia, and so they both smelled of death by the time they got home, or else everyone in the area would have been ravaged by spattergroit. As it was, the spattergroit epidemic of 981 would go down in Russian Magical History books as more catastrophic to their population than the bubonic plague was in the Muggle world, a few centuries later.

Hermione thought that was one of the vaccinations that Sherlock had insisted upon for both her and Harry, when they turned 11, and started at Hogwarts. Of course, there was a whole list, which Hermione had in her trunk, and could check, if there was an issue, or an outbreak of some long-dead disease. She kept pretty much everything Sherlock wrote up for her, if only because it was so rare that he did not insist she devote to it to memory. Her health and Harry's health were two things he wanted her to memorize, but have written down just in case. Of course, the "in case" was for if she was unable to answer, as she had one of the best memories he had ever encountered.

He seemed to have great pride in her mind palace. Professor Snape had once, with permission from both of them, compared them using Legilimency, finding that, although Hermione's castle better protected her secrets, Sherlock's had a larger "library" of general information and was more organized. He had then set to trying to make his mind closer to Sherlock's, and found, to his dismay, that he could not quite reach that point, despite being the same age (or at least, year at Hogwarts). The thought of that still sometimes made her smile.

She also endeavoured to get to the same point as Sherlock. None of his information was useless, and, as a true Ravenclaw, Hermione herself considered information to be the end in itself. Sherlock was not quite there, but he did consider information a tool to be held onto, even with the slight chance it would not be necessary information. The difference was small enough, he claimed, combined with his penchant to blurt out information, that it overcame the Sorting Hat's hope to place him in Slytherin. That he wasn't a blissfully ignorant dunderhead was the only thing to keep him out of Gryffindor (according to him). Lacking the means to be proper friendship material made him ill-suited to Hufflepuff.

For Hermione, being in this time was, frankly, frightening. The last time she had seen her father had been the night before they left, during a detention he had given her for being late to class. Because Sherlock had been the top in his year, John only knew about the Time Turner through the letter the Ministry sent to ask him, and could not understand what she was trying to accomplish by running herself into the ground. He also could not abide her being late to his class, especially when she had her own time machine to make sure she was on time. When she explained to him that she was studying, and did not notice how late it had gotten, apologized, and promised it would never happen again, he had gotten a little annoyed. Harry thought it had been because it was such a Sherlock kind of thing to do (minus the apology and resolution, which had come last, anyway, when John probably wasn't listening), and John was grieving for Sherlock, and was sort of denying he was gone (which, Hermione thought, would make sense, as that was what John's subconscious was probably trying to tell him). Therefore, John got mad when Hermione acted like Sherlock, and kicked her out of his office, telling her not to come back until she was ready to act as an adult.

Upon their arrival, and subsequent finding out that they would one day be two of _the_ Founders of Hogwarts, Harry had wryly commented that Hermione would probably be completely ready to act as an adult with John. She smacked him jokingly, and pretended that it didn't bother her that he was right about that- that it would probably be at least 20 more years for her until she saw her father again.

It did not help that it would be closer to 20 minutes for her father, and he would probably not understand how much of her life she had lived while away from him. For him, it would be possible that she had merely had a horrible dream, and was coming to him for comfort. It would not explain any abrupt about-faces she had, but it would explain any minor changes in her thought process.

She pressured Harry into joining her in writing down everything about themselves at that point in time so they could go back and look at it, before they went back to their own time. It was not as important for Harry, because Luna would probably take anything new he suddenly said in stride, and John was avoiding Harry due to his resemblance to Sherlock. None of the other professors knew Harry well enough to notice if he suddenly changed his habits, as long as he stayed somewhat close to how he had been prior to time travelling. John would notice if Hermione changed a lot, and wonder about that, and Professor McGonagall probably would as well.

Professor Snape was sort of a wild card; he might notice, but choose not to say anything, or notice and say something discretely, or not notice at all, or notice and mention it at the least convenient time. Upon finding out Harry's true parentage, he had accepted that Lily had chosen someone else, although he was still miffed that Lily hadn't come to him upon finding out she was pregnant with Harry. He had once told Harry, in confidence, that he would have been honoured to pretend to be his surrogate father, even if he had to keep up an act of dislike while in public. He and Sherlock were probably the closest they each had to a friend during school, despite being academic rivals. Their friendship cracked when Sherlock tried to woo Lily. The revelation that he had apparently succeeded caused Severus Snape no small amount of pain.

Of course, they both needed to act their parts well around Sherlock; he'd probably pounce on them and start doing thousands of tests on each of them to try to figure out if the time travel was able to be replicated if he knew. Neither of them hoped for that. They also had a whole two months before Christmas break, which was when Sherlock was planning on revealing to John that he was still alive, when they all went home for Christmas.

She finally checked the sheet, and all the diseases Hippolyta had ever heard of had a vaccine (excepting the common cold, which, in a strong magical person, could cause changes in weather patterns and seismic activity), which Harry and Hermione had both already received. There were even some illnesses that Hippolyta had never heard of on the sheet. Of course, Hermione could name several that even witches and wizards had no vaccine for, which worried Hippolyta, who had never time travelled anywhere herself. The original Rowena had carried the gene to get sick from time travel; what if Hippolyta had been the carrier?

Hermione's reassurances that most of the illnesses were not contagious did not help. Her talking about her fears for her father, and her apprehensions about the future, at least managed to distract Hippolyta from her fretting over contagious diseases.

Hippolyta seemed willing to listen as she got it all off her chest, somehow managing to follow her wild rambling. Often, they would sit together in the kitchen as Hippolyta made supper, talking and bonding like a mother and daughter. Despite missing John, Hermione revelled in finally having a mother figure she could tell everything to; her own biological mother was not really the best at parenting, and would often drop her off at the library, leading to her early love for reading and learning. It also made it almost bearable that she would not see John for a long time; she wondered, at times, if Hippolyta was also helping Harry, or if Apollo was helping him. She worried that he was keeping it all bottled up. It never occurred to Hermione that he may have already made his peace with it all.

It helped Harry because he had figured out how to bind the future in a variation of the Fidelius Charm, making it so that they could tell the three adults everything they wanted or needed to, and anything the adults really should know, without changing the future. After all, Harry had figured out how to make the Secret Keepers be themselves, Time, any other time travellers, or people chosen by Time, like seers. Until they all died, and time stopped, the future would remain a mystery to everyone from that point onward. If Time ceased to exist, then they'd all cease to exist anyway, so it was only a catch-22 if someone with bad intentions figured out how to time travel with the intent to disrupt the time stream. Understandably, there were flaws, but Harry doubted those flaws would show up any time soon, as he did not think anyone else was a time traveller in this time. He was relatively certain any travellers were taking care to make sure the world did not learn of the future too quickly, because they would have to be suicidal to do so.

It also helped Hermione to know that Hippolyta and Thespis were serious about adopting her. Apollo had quickly agreed to adopt Harry, as well, although Harry was a little leery of it, as he worried that being adopted a second time would make him ineligible for his own birthright from the Holmes family. He wanted to try to keep the Potter inheritance as well, but if it meant he was unable to keep his actual birth name, he'd surrender it.

He did find a journal from his adopted father, mixed in with his textbooks. Parts of it were vague- like the "grandma issues" he kept referring to- but he did reveal what they had named Harry. After he was named with the common name of Lily's grandfather's nickname, Harry, James had insisted upon a more elaborate name to keep betrothal contacts away. Both James and Lily agreed that "Henry" would be too obvious, as that was exactly who he was named after, but James resisted Lily's suggestion to name him Adrian, saying it was too androgynous. Over the course of Lily's pregnancy, she wore James down enough for the copy of Harry's birth certificate present in the journal to say "Adrian James William Holmes-Potter". As Sherlock had been unable to find a birth certificate for Harry (the one kept with the Dursleys having been burnt by Dudley playing with matches a couple months before his parents' deaths, and his original "misfiled" at the Ministry of Magic), Mycroft had created and back-dated one for him. Harry had his suspicions that Lily had given Mycroft a copy of his birth certificate, because the weight, body length, and head circumference present on his Muggle birth certificate were the same on both documents. On the magical birth certificate, his power at birth was the same on both certificates. The only difference between the two was the order of his middle names. Harry wondered if Sherlock even read his fake birth certificates. Harry certainly had never looked closely at them; after all, even they said "Adrian". Sherlock would certainly have thought the name better than the name "Harry", which would have been way too common-sounding for his sensibilities. If Sherlock _had_ looked, Harry certainly would be going by "Adrian" at that point in time.

Their studies progressed in leaps and bounds. Hermione had read all the non-textbooks in her trunk (having borrowed several from the Hogwarts library that she had yet to read), and was working her way through the Muggle textbooks in Harry's trunk. They were waiting for until after their adoptions to work through the textbooks they had, so that they could have a stronger understanding of magic in general, so they could complete the 2013 Hogwarts curriculum faster. Harry had finally begun to learn a way to fight that combined magical and muggle fighting. He wanted to make sure they knew what they were doing if they ever had to fight. Hippolyta had insisted upon him learning healing, to make up for any lives he took, to which he also took to like a duck to water. Without much further study (he did nothing but study, of course), he would be able to get a Mastery in healing once they arrived back in the future, if he continued at his current pace for two years or so. He would have to learn how to do it with his wand, but that could be remedied for most spells with a wand "blank", which Hippolyta insisted they both learn how to use convincingly.

* * *

June passed quickly. The solstice was an interesting time, if only because the adults all went to a festival in the village, leaving Harry and Hermione completely alone together for the first time in months.

They took the time to sit and speak with each other about what they wished for the future within their relationship with each other. Both were willing to try moving past friendship, although Hermione especially was terrified of what would happen if it didn't work out. Neither really wanted to meet and fall in love with someone in this time, and, when they returned to 2013, they would be at least 20 years older than their peers, which would make any sort of romantic relationship a rather poor choice. There was no doubt in either teen's mind that they would at least try to fit in until 5th year, so that they could take their OWLs without much of a media spectacle.

Since going out on a date was out of the question, Harry made them dinner to eat together, and they sat at the table, as couples do, speaking about random, inane things, again, as couples do. Truly, they just revelled in each other's presence.

As they were cleaning their dishes, Harry leaned toward Hermione, giving her plenty of time to lean away, and gave her a kiss. Of course, he was trying to kiss her cheek or maybe her lips, and got her nose, causing her to kiss his chin as she kissed back, but, no one got poked in the eye or pressured into doing something they did not want to do, so it was, overall, a success in the eyes of both Harry and Hermione. They hugged, and sat on the kitchen floor, talking, without finishing the dishes.

The adults found them asleep on the floor when they got home that morning. Gently, Hippolyta moved them both to the large bed they shared, where they slept most of the day.

The adults slept until nightfall, at which time they were awoken by the smell of some fresh stew Harry had made, and the bread Hermione had wanted to try her hand at making.

They talked over dinner about what would be expected of them for the adoption ceremony. Since it would be conducted rather early in the morning, Hippolyta wanted both of them to sleep the day before, and stay up the entire night, since they had to complete it at seven, not start it.

A positive to doing it in the early morning, she said, was that they would then be able to sleep the entire day after the ceremony, and then be refreshed the next day to get back to their studies. Both Harry and Hermione agreed with her logic, although they were less excited than she seemed about it.

* * *

The last couple of weeks were completely about preparing for the ritual. Sure, the three adults went out just as often as they did before, but they did so individually, and sometimes in pairs. At least one of them always remained with Harry and Hermione, teaching them the Runes used in that time so they would be able to complete the adoption ceremony. At home, all they did outside the necessary housework was study together.

Hippolyta wanted to add in the Animagus ritual, as it would be a good base to their new studies, but Apollo overruled her when he found the two sitting and stressing to each other about the Animagus ritual, which, although way simpler than the adoption one, was still rather complex. They could do it come September, he said, if they wanted to do it. Their cores would be stable by then, and they would be able to work at it indoors during the long winter months.

No one really knew how exactly Thespis was helping them. He sort of hovered around them, not exactly helping them understand the runes or correcting them, but not really being so much of a distraction that Hippolyta would kick him out. Harry postulated that he wanted to ask them something, but was afraid to ask them because it would distract them from the task at hand.

Finally, just a couple days before the ritual, he asked his question. Both Harry and Hermione knew the pieces well enough that Hippolyta was satisfied with their memorization, and she had set them free for the afternoon. He caught them before they were even out of their seats.

"Would you tell me more about taking pitchers? I want you to have some sort of proof of coming back in time, for when you get back to your own time one day... And maybe some sort of image of what their grandparents looked like, for when you go back to your own time. I doubt you'd want to leave your children behind, unless they were fully grown, but I know your plans pretty much leave no place for you to have children for the next ten years or so. Then it would be another 20 or 30 years before you'd be comfortable leaving them, and that would probably be too long for you to want to wait to go back to the time of your birth."

Harry nodded, looking oddly at Thespis as he did so.

"You want _pictures_ for us to use before we go back, don't you?"

Thespis nodded sheepishly, and Harry walked over to his trunk and dug through until he found his Polaroid camera. He had brought several boxes of film to use at Hogwarts that year, and they were all still in his trunk as well. Since his camera was a magical construct (modified by none other than one Sherlock Holmes), it would have unlimited power and make duplicates of each photo if he wanted.

He also took out the book on the potion to dip the developing photos in. It luckily would only take a short time, as the photo could not be developed yet for it to work (and that was why the digital cameras would not work with it). It just needed to be quickly thrown together, and then left to simmer for about 10 minutes, and then quickly frozen via a freezing spell. It then was melted slowly as needed. An inexact potion, for an inexact art, as everyone's freezing spell is slightly different.

Thespis insisted they make the potion right then. Hippolyta agreed they should spend the afternoon and evening on a photo shoot, and so they set to work on the potion.

The next day, Thespis stayed out of the way, instead studying his (small) piece of the ritual. It was obvious he already knew it pretty well, so Hippolyta did not comment much on him leaving it to the last minute, although she did berate him for it when he double checked a rune that he was supposed to have drawn in chalk on his clothes.

The two teens were sent out back, to a small clearing, to set up the circle. This part allowed them to use their notes, which they did to double-check it all.

The ritual consisted of a perfectly round stone, carved with a single rune to signify family, surrounded by a ring of runes that all symbolized binding, paternity, maternity, and growth. Harry and Hermione had spent the last couple weeks carving into small stones the runes they needed for the ritual, and were setting them up in a formation as close to circular as they could.

The modification Hippolyta had insisted upon was to make the circle into two circles that overlapped at one point (meaning they had to carve one less stone). This meant that Harry and Apollo had to completely flip their ritual, so that the two rings were mirror images of each other. Whenever Hermione did something with her right hand, Harry had to do it with his left hand. The same held true for Apollo, and Hippolyta and Thespis. Since Apollo was left-handed, and Harry could use both his hands equally well, the group decided it would probably be best for the ritual if they did that. Harry and Apollo would probably have had to flip the ring anyway, because Apollo was definitely unable to use his right hand, as a steady hand was required, and the ritual was created for right-handed people.

Around dinner time, Hippolyta came out and checked the circles. Finding them satisfactory, she bid the two inside, to rest for the ritual. All the adults followed suit. They all fell asleep rather quickly.

* * *

 **A/N: Sorry about the delay (but it's out the day after I promised, and it's an extra long chapter (almost 11,000 words!)).**

 **Please review this story- I want to know what you like/don't like/want to see/don't want to see going onward (even if I have a lot of it written already, I can still try to incorporate suggestions!)**

 **Thank you for reading!**


	4. Adventure ot Challenging Children- pt 1

The Adventure of the Challenging Children

Around midnight, Hippolyta shook Hermione awake, who then woke Harry rather quickly. They bathed, then changed into the clean clothing she had set out for the two of them (she had opened the chastity belt as Hermione slept), turning back to back for privacy, and grabbed the small ritual knives Apollo had brought over the week before. In silence, they strode efficiently through the forest, to the clearing, and separated, Hermione going to stand in her circle, and Harry in his. Thespis joined Hermione, standing on the other side of her central stone, and Hippolyta soon was standing next to him. Apollo stood straight across from Harry.

As one, at an unspoken command, Harry and Hermione began to chant the ritual, starting with the chant that addressed the stone the two circles shared, Harry vocally noting that he was chanting in the opposite direction from the natural configuration of the ritual. Both teens were soon sweating from the exertion of keeping their magic completely in check. A slivery figure appeared in Harry and Apollo's circle. She was tall, with long, black hair and bright gold eyes that, despite her form's transparency, seemed completely present, and her attendance caused Apollo's eyes to widen. While the teens chanted, the adults, and the ghostly figure, all silently sliced their own finger, and then sliced the finger to their respective teen. They held the fingers over the stone, where the blood mixed on the family rune. Then both of the men traced the rune with their finger, the two grown women (one ghostly, the other not-so-ghostly) tracing after the men were finished. The adults grabbed the teens' hands, and traced the finger over the rune, while the children finished chanting, halting to an eerie stop.

Around them, each of the stones was lit up in a myriad of colours, creating a white light inside the circles. Moving separately, yet together, they all sat down on the ground, holding bleeding hand in bleeding hand over the stone. The teens picked up their knives, and carefully carved the family rune over the side of their hands. The rune was rather intricate and fiddly, so it did take a while. By the time they finished the rune, the sun had risen almost completely. Harry finished first, and continued the ritual by kissing each of Apollo's fingers as they stood up, while Apollo stared at him, somewhat impassively. His gaze flickered for a moment, then returned to impassive before Harry could figure out what emotion had briefly flitted across his face. Harry turned to the woman, and kissed each of her fingers as well, as obviously she had been called forth to participate in the ritual for a reason. He figured that, with the magic coming from the Peverells, that of the ability to transcend death, it would not be too terribly surprising if it were one Ellie Slytherin making an appearance.

Wind appeared out of nowhere in the circle, making Harry's hair flap around wildly and Apollo's begin to whip itself into wild tangles. _Her_ hair and clothing stayed completely still, unaffected by the wind. Time outside the circle ceased to mean anything, yet meant everything, as they stared into each other's eyes, ears howling with the wind's roar, eyes burning as they stood there, unblinking. Harry's tenuous control of his magic ceased, increasing the speed of the wind; Apollo's barely reigned-in magic joined his a moment later, revelling in the feeling of a son's magic against his own. The wind continued yet to howl. Apollo's lips were bloody and chapped, while Harry's nose was running rather obviously. The wraith did not have a single hair out of place, although both could feel her magic join with theirs, welcoming and warm, but not confining- like how Harry hoped his birth mother's magic felt.

Hermione finished kissing both Hippolyta and Thespis' fingers. Both faces were impassive, behind a mask, as the ritual asked, but Hermione was having trouble keeping a grin off her face. For a half second, she could see the same exasperation as Hippolyta often looked at Harry with- loving, but also a little bit annoyed- and she found herself able to keep the smile from her face, instead smiling inwardly. All three clutched tightly to their magic, barely keeping it from exploding outward as the wind picked up speed, their magic slowly draining into the stone in the centre of the circle.

Both centrestones were dripping bits of molten rock onto the clearing's ground from the buildup of the magic. The pressure around them pressed the molten rock tighter and tighter, making it into a beautiful diamond with the rune for family engraved, seemingly in blue fire, within the centre.

There was a thunderous boom from the stone, and both groups of people were thrown apart a couple of feet, elbows no longer bent, arms straining to reach each other. Both teens collapsed to the ground, the magical energy no longer keeping them conscious.

Despite the morning sunlight, the clearing seemed rather dark with the sudden absence of the white light created by the rituals. Thespis picked up his newly adopted daughter and carried her back to the cottage, Hippolyta grabbing both main ritual stones (Harry and Apollo's had also, unbeknownst to them, formed a diamond as well) and following behind. All the small stones Harry and Hermione had carved had cracked under the strain of all their magic, leaving small piles of rubble, which Hippolyta efficiently vanished. It would not do to leave evidence of their activities for the common magical folk- or worse, that Gryffindor boy who always nosed his way into everything- to find. The wraith remained, planting a kiss on Apollo's lips, and then one on Harry's forehead, before turning back to Apollo as he lifted Harry, tears streaming down his face. The figure of the woman stayed for a few moments longer, giving Apollo one last lingering kiss as she faded as the dew does in the light of day.

All three adults went to bed as well, sleeping in until around noon, when they got up and resumed the pattern they had assumed that winter, of rotating shifts by the teens' bed, while they all also got some actual work done. None of them spoke about the ritual, hoping to discuss it with their children first.

The day turned into night, and both Harry and Hermione stayed asleep. The changes made by the ritual they had chosen would happen over time, subtly changing how they looked, thought, spoke, and even reacted to things. All three adults were ready for anything to happen with either of them, and had many measures in place for if any of it did happen. They were especially worried because Hermione was on the older side of what the ritual allowed, and they all worried that it could have completely been botched in her case. They weren't as worried for Harry, although they were ready to know what it did to his eyesight, if it did anything, and if his Parselmouth ability would come through stronger.

* * *

The teens slept late the next day, although they managed to rise for supper. Harry was especially uncoordinated, as he had grown a half an inch overnight, although Hermione's centre of gravity seemed a little displaced as well, even if no one could really pinpoint what exactly had changed.

There were multitudes of reasons they had chosen this particular ritual. To begin with, it could not be performed on young children, due to the high level of participation required of the adoptee. Because of that, it had a higher chance of success on people on the cusp of not being able to do it.

Additionally, it was the one used in cases of child abuse, when the abuse was caught too late to fix otherwise. The first growth stage would make the child's body become how it would have been if he were biologically the child of whomever had adopted him. The second part would make the child then grow as though he had lived with the family for all his life, never being abused or mistreated. The first part would take a variable amount of time, but the second part always took exactly a month from the ending of the first part, when one counted the three days rest period between the two. Even severe abuse would only take a month to repair, although some who were emotionally abused reported longer times in terms of physical repair as well as emotional repair. Seemingly, those children's magic would help their bodies mirror where they were in terms of working through the abuse they had suffered.

Due to these reasons, it surprised no one that Harry had grown so much. Hermione had told all three adults one night that Sherlock was very tall, and, from Hermione's gleanings, so was Mr. Evans; Lily had been taller than average as well. From hearing Harry speaking about his biological aunt and uncle, they also were really tall, although the adults all thought that his aunt, especially, seemed tall because she was in a position of power over him, and he mentally made her way larger than him. James Potter had been shorter than Lily, if one looked closely at the pictures, where he always tried to be standing on higher ground than her, only about 5' at full height. Having been adopted by him probably made Harry a good 6 inches, already, shorter than he would have been, and could even have made him shorter by a full 8 or 9 inches upon his maturity. It was not surprising he had shot up, because now the "short" genes from James Potter were completely "wiped out" by the larger number of "tall" genes.

The reason, of course, that they decided it would be beneficial for them to look like they had actually been their biological children, was so that they would have a larger chance of looking very similar to the real Salazar and Rowena. Since both of them already bore strong resemblances to the deceased children, and magic worked like nature, in that the easiest path was usually the one taken, the adults all thought they would look enough like the original Salazar and Rowena to carry it off.

It also did not completely erase the genetic makeup of the child. Harry would keep being Harry, but he'd have two sets of parents (both of whom, ironically, were single fathers due to the death of their wives). Hermione would still be Hermione, but, in addition to being able to call John "Dad", she'd be able to call Hippolyta "Mum" and Thespis "Father".

It also would help Hippolyta begin to understand and diagnose the amount of abuse Harry suffered from the Dursleys, as there would be a couple days where Harry was just as he would be if he had been Apollo and Elisebeth's son, whom she had already seen two of grow to adolescence. From measurements, Apollo and Sherlock were the exact same height, so Sherlock's genes probably would not interfere too much. Of course, that period of time would be rather odd, merely because he'd be about halfway to being done changing, yet the largest changes were yet to come, but she was convinced she'd be able to figure out when it was.

Strangely enough, both teens had many sudden changes, which were odd considering the ritual they had gone through. Apollo had finally announced that they had the largest magical cores he had ever seen in a teen, even when counting "those pesky Gryffindors", and that their magic was probably making it happen in bursts instead of gradually, and they were perfectly safe.

Over the next few weeks, Harry and Hermione were entertained by poking fun at each other for odd things their bodies would unexpectedly do. One morning, at breakfast, Harry suddenly grew an inch, causing Hermione to squirt milk out her nose from laughing so hard. Later that same day, they were practicing yoga when Hermione suddenly lost her balance due to a sudden increase in her mammary gland tissue. It was Harry's turn to hold his sides laughing.

Most mornings, they would inspect each other to see what had happened to them overnight. They were the two to first notice that Harry had stopped changing, about three weeks after the ritual, causing Hippolyta to rush over and begin running a multitude of tests on Harry.

She must have found what she wanted as a baseline, because by that afternoon, she had released Harry, and turned her eyes toward Hermione, who they had also noted had stopped changing that morning. She finished by evening with Hermione, and they then had one day to enjoy not growing before they both hit another growth spurt around dawn the day after that.

They sat and read during the majority of their free day. Neither of them looked obviously different from how they did before, although Harry's features had become slightly more elvin, he was obviously way taller, and he would sometimes accidentally speak in Parseltongue, and Hermione seemed to have maybe gotten the Veela gift, as her unmanageable hair had become slightly more manageable.

Harry also reflected on the conversation he had with his father regarding the presence of Elisebeth during the ritual.

* * *

 _It had been the second or third day after the ritual. Harry was sitting, meditating, as Hippolyta had asked of the teens, when Apollo came up to him._

 _§Yesss?§_

 _§I wissshed to ssspeak to you about what happened during the ritual. There isss no record of that ever happening for sssomeone before, and ssso I wanted to make sssure you were not mad about Ellie ssshowing up.§_

 _§Of courssse I'm not mad. I've actually wondered for a few monthsss what ssshe looks like, and how ssshe smells, and how her hugsss feel. I may have been unable to ssstand, but that kisss from her will be sssomething I treasssure forever, up there with the firssst kisss I give my future wife when we marry, or the firssst time I'll feel comfortable calling you "Dad" inssstead of "Father" or "Apollo". I've never even called Sssherlock by "Dad", although that may be becausssse he'sss not exactly the "Dad" sssort. I certainly call him "my father", but rarely do I even call him "Father" to hissss face. It might have to do with the way in which he ssseemsss so much more immature than I picture either of those figuresss, at leassst in all the experiencesss I've had with him.§_

 _§You really believe you'll one day think of me asss sssuch?§_

 _§Of courssse. I've only lived near you for ssseveral monthsss, and I'm already opening up to you about thingsss that I only recently, or have never, told Sssherlock about. For example- my aunt- Daisy, wasss it? You know, I actually don't remember what her name wasss- all the ssstuff with her. Even a psssychologist wasssn't able to get me to talk, yet I clearly remember opening up to you about it mere monthsss after waking up. Your magic feelsss more like that of a father, while Sssherlock'sss- it feelsss like an old, foolhardy friend'sss, to me anyway. Hermione claimsss there is no way to "feel" magic, but I believe ssshe jussst isssn't asss open to the idea asss I am._

 _§I could feel_ her _magic, you know. It felt like a warm hug- not overbearing, but not ssshy and unsssure, either. It felt like how I imagine a mother'sss love to feel. I felt sssafe and sssecure, and the moment ssshe appeared, I jussst knew it wasss_ her _; I didn't need to deduce anything to know it. I just did. I can't remember how Lily'sss magic felt, and I only have tracesss of Jamesss' in hisss diary. He didn't feel much like a father, either; just a young man pretending to be sssomething he wasssn't. It felt unsssure, and a little sssmothering, to be honessst. I much prefer yoursss to either of my other fathersss' magicsss, and will hold the memory of Ellie'sss magic tightly to myssself forever.§_

 _§What are you willing to ssspeak about, if the topic comesss up later on? What are you alright with me telling, if not both Hippolyta and Thessspiss, just Thessspisss?§_

 _§I guessss... Jussst that ssshe wasss there, and that ssshe adopted me, asss well, and that I'm more than alright with it. I think the ressst isss ssstill a little too persssonal for me to even think of ssspeaking of with anyone, even Hermione.§_

 _"You are aware you just held an entire conversation in Parseltongue, right?" Hermione poked her tongue out at him. "It's rude to do that when I'm trying to meditate- maybe next time, you could take it outside, instead."_

 _"Maybe I will, Hermione. And no, I wasn't aware. I thought I was laying my soul bare to both of you, and that was_ totally _why I was surprised when I mentioned things you know little about and wasn't interrupted. Oh wait- I remained unsurprised throughout the conversation." Hermione rolled her eyes and went back to her meditation, although the next thing she said to him wasn't until the next morning, when he suddenly grew an inch. Even then, their relationship remained slightly frosty for a few hours more._

* * *

The second set of growth was rather unimpressive for Hermione, when compared to Harry. She grew another half inch or so over the course of five weeks, which, although a lot, was not as much as Harry grew. Already, Hermione had passed the amount of time the ritual was supposed to last in taking effect, meaning she was already 15 by the time it finished.

By comparison, over the course of almost six weeks, Harry grew another half a foot. He stumbled around an awful lot during the time he was growing, although he did not look like a stick, as he also had a seemingly insatiable appetite, and filled out in muscle quite a bit as well while maintaining a healthy amount of body fat. He remained slender, but was not painfully thin like he had been when Sherlock first met him, several years before.

He looked like he could be Apollo's younger (and taller) brother. Due to Elisebeth's presence in the ritual, Harry looked almost identical to Salazar, as they had hoped, although he kept his poor eyesight. He also seemed to have developed a slight gift in feeling other people's emotions- a shadow of what Salazar had, but present nonetheless. Apollo hoped that, with use, it would become stronger in Harry, as it had in Salazar.

Salazar knew Ellie was dying from spattergroit when she stopped seeing him. She had nothing to fight for, like Salazar did, and so, even though Apollo tried everything he could, she died before Salazar. That was part of the reason Salazar refused to speak to him toward the end. An empath, as his mother was, he felt her die before Apollo could even get there to tell him. Losing his mother was part of what broke him. Being alone, without his father there to comfort him, managed it most of the rest of the way.

Losing the ability to speak to anyone but the one person he believed was responsible for his mother's death was the other piece. None of the other Slytherins were able to speak Parseltongue, as Apollo's elvin heritage came from his mother, the supposed last of a family of little notoriety, the Evans family. Asking Harry to look it up yielded the revelation that the remainder of the family had gone into hiding when she was rather young yet, leaving behind her, her mother, and her father. Gone into fairyland as they were, they would not notice time pass until a mere decade before Harry was born, at which time it would be too late, as their only living kin would be a psychopathic killer, and now Harry, in about 25 years. The books Harry had did mention Lily Evans as being, as far as the authors could tell, possibly descended from a distant cadet branch that lost all the elvin traits prior to Lily's birth. There was talk about a fabled Apollo Evans, but he seemed more a fairytale than anything else, as he was well-received by the rest of the Evans family, according to the story, and married a young elfling when he met the family.

They had wanted to overthrow the wizards and take back their rightful forests so they could continue on as they had, as nomads, living in and around nature as they pleased. There was a footnote about the woman Apollo had known as "Mum" in the book, saying she had been mentally unhinged, as evidenced by the way her own family was willing to leave her and her parents behind. It then said that her descendant was also proof of such, as the first Parselmouth to attend Hogwarts in hundreds of years was more than a little off. The Gaunts (the only noted House with prominent Parslemouths), apparently, fell off the spectrum of eligibility for the school in the early 15th century.

Apollo looked quite livid, and stalked off to cool down.

* * *

Around the middle of July, a present arrived from Europe for Harry. It had been sent by his niece, Ariel, as an invitation to become regular correspondents with each other. Excited to know someone else in this time, Harry happily wrote a letter back, sending it to her via Apollo's rather majestic owl, Hedwig.

Ariel and her mother Polina were excited to get to know Loki's newest younger brother, even if he did have to masquerade as the unfortunately deceased Salazar. Like the Ravenclaws and Slytherins, they knew of the prophecy about a school, and Maya hoped to meet two of the illustrious future Founders one day soon, although it looked like it would not be for a few years yet that they would get to meet in person.

She settled for getting to know him through his writing, and Harry, for his part, soaked up every bit of knowledge he could about his niece: her messy handwriting, so like his prior to Sherlock's penmanship lessons, spoke of her character (headstrong, a little impatient, and overall eager to please), while the smudges demonstrated she was left-handed. Sometimes, the ink would bleed through the parchment, as though she hovered her quill, unsure of what to say as the ink dripped onto the parchment. She would often include a drawing of something in her everyday life, and Harry felt that she had real talent as an artist, if only she would be allowed to pursue such a dream. In asking Apollo, it soon became apparent that no one knew how to charm a painting or drawing to make it move, as they had done with the pictures and potion prior to the adoption. Harry was positive that she would be the one to come up with how to do it, and so nudged Ariel toward thinking about how to do it. Since his telling her, flat-out, that paintings and pictures moved in the modern Wizarding World, would result in her being unable to demonstrate that ability to anyone besides a time traveller, Harry instead tried to make it seem as though images did not, but he thought they _could_ if she worked on the project.

* * *

It was nearing the end of August when Harry was done tripping over his own feet. He seemed to have maybe hit a natural growth spurt in the middle of his magically-induced one, and therefore was still growing, but at a more relaxed pace.

He still was somewhat clumsy, and his voice was definitely undergoing changes, but he was ready to try the newer Animagus ritual with Hermione. This ritual had been lost to time in their original time, which Hermione found rather depressing, because there was knowledge lost. It surely beat carrying a mandrake leaf around in your mouth for a full month. Neither teen wanted to even contemplate what the leaf would taste like at the end of the month.

The ritual itself was rather easy- they just needed to meditate in an empty clearing from dawn to dusk without stopping after taking a special potion, which Harry thought he could maybe do. They prepared rune stones to surround themselves with, as was called for in the ritual. The issue was that they could not be disturbed by anything, not a muscle ache, an itch, or a bird's call. Even the first time changing shape could not allow them to break their concentration, or else they would have to start over again.

After the first change, they would still have to concentrate for a while to be able to get it to happen, and to stay in their animal form, but they would eventually be able to shift between the two with no problem.

The day had to be a sunny day on the day of a new moon, due to the symbolism of new beginnings. Rain would ruin the ritual if a person were to turn into a bird, while if it was too windy, any small mammals would get blown around. If there was snow, then a reptile animagus could easily fall asleep in their new form, and wake up unable to turn back. The magic already made the clearing somewhat windy, after all, so they would not be able to add much more wind to the equation. The runes were all about finding oneself, especially in reference to their "inner self", or the self that no one else knew well, and then using magic to transform themselves into animals.

* * *

They both managed it, of course. It took a couple of false starts for Harry, and a couple more after that for Hermione, who was more used to meditating to organize her mind, and not clear it. They still started early enough to manage it by dusk, which was all the potion really required. Just like Rowena and Salazar, they were a bird and a snake, although Hermione's form was a phoenix instead of the white tailed eagle of the original Rowena, and Harry's black (young) basilisk, although similar, was a contrast to Salazar's green grass snake.

Upon coming back into their regular bodies, they stood up and stretched, and then went to bed.

As the next morning dawned, Harry woke and stretched, hollering in glee when he realized his eyesight was better than he could ever remember it being, even if everything seemed to be both in normal colour, as a human could see it, and in some form of infrared. Looking around, he realized he could see the entire light spectrum, as visible to human eyes, and then about 150 µm further on each side. It did not seem to give him a headache, although he worried about it doing so by the middle of the day.

Later that day, Harry and Hermione sat down to discuss what, exactly, made his eyesight better when snakes had such horrible eyesight. Of course, neither were thinking in terms of magical snakes, and it was that point Thespis made when he tired of their over-analyzing of Harry's transformation.

He then was treated to Hermione's listing of theories for why they both were magical animals. Although he looked amused, he asked her to calm down, take a breath, and maybe write it down instead of rambling aloud. He'd be interested to hear her theories once she rambled less, and had them organized somewhat sequentially.

He did not tell her that it was actually somewhat common for people to have either multiple or magical forms in that time, due to the higher prevalence of strong magical cores. He actually wondered if the history textbooks remembered that Rowena Ravenclaw had been a phoenix Animagus, or if it was erased out of spite or jealousy. Inbreeding did quite a number on magical cores, something Harry had mentioned the majority of the modern Wizarding World did not understand. Therefore, in their time, few people actually tried the transformation, and those that did were only usually able to get one form out of it, distinctly non-magical in nature. It was a testament to the Holmes family that they did not intermarry enough for it to be an issue, ignoring his mother being Muggleborn; Hermione, of course, had a muggle, or maybe a Squib for a mother, and therefore had enough "new" blood in her that she was rather strong magically as well. The Ponds, after all, may have died out centuries before Hermione's birth, or not at all. The only known child of a Pond in their time was Hermione. Depending on the number of generations between her mother and a magical family member, Rose was either a Muggle or Squib, but Hermione also lacked the inbreeding of the modern so-called "old" families.

The conversation did not give him a headache, but his new eyesight did, so Harry went back to bed soon after lunch, and slept until the next morning. Hermione was not having any such issues, and so stayed awake for the day, even going to market with Hippolyta.

She looked enough like Rowena that no one questioned it, and those who asked how she was doing just nodded sympathetically when she explained how she had been so ill. The marketplace was not busy, it being near the end of the day, but it was busy enough that word Rowena was healthy again spread quickly. People began to wonder when, and if, Salazar would make an appearance, although no one outright asked.

Harry's visual migraines decreased in frequency through the next few weeks. When he finally got through three days without getting a headache, Hippolyta brought up him going to market as well. Hermione enjoyed doing so, even if it meant she had to take on some mannerisms she was unused to, such as chewing on the end of her braid. Hippolyta had given her a hair growth potion to make it look like she had never cut her hair, as the real Rowena never wanted a haircut, even if she had had one (against her will) while in pre-Roman times. Getting out to the market to actually experience picking out the foods and potions ingredients she would use made it more doable to live at home the rest of the time, with little contact with the outside world.

Harry agreed, and had a fun day out, even if it was difficult to interact with others, who knew the real Salazar. For Harry, at least, it was easier to interact with them than it was for Hermione, because he would easily notice if they were uncomfortable, and what was causing their discomfort, and therefore he would change his behaviour accordingly. It was easiest to interact with those that knew the secret, obviously, but Harry hoped to keep it a secret from everyone else around them, except for the other two Founders, when they finally met them. Apollo reminded him that his sister-in-law and niece already knew, due to having attended Salazar's funeral, and now Ariel's correspondence with Harry.

Hermione had gotten somewhat severe cabin fever. Therefore, when Lady Hannah Hufflepuff asked her if she would be willing to watch little Helga Hufflepuff for her while she and Lord Nikolai Hufflepuff went on an adventure to a conference with some Norse wizards, Hermione agreed happily. Hannah's hope that "Rowena" would stay at their estate, to keep as much normalcy to Helga's life as possible sealed the deal for her. Hippolyta wandered up to them, and together Hannah and Hippolyta managed to pound out a deal where Rowena would stay at Hufflepuff House with Helga during the night, and stay either there, with the Ravenclaws, or with the Slytherins during the day, bringing Helga along at all times, especially when going to market.

* * *

The night before Helga was due to come stay with them, Harry whooped with glee upon finding an ink drawing from Ariel, enclosed with her latest letter, which moved, showing Hedwig in flight across the page. He pinned it to their bookcase, knowing Helga would probably ask about it. Upon deep thought, Harry found he did not care either way, if she asked or not, as long as he got to brag about the abilities of his niece, like the proud uncle he was.

* * *

 **I apologize for the the shortness to this chapter (only about 5,500 words), and the lateness. I did not have the chance to do final edits until this week, due to dead week, and then finals. But, those are done now, and I am on my winter break, so I hope to have the next chapter ready to go tomorrow at the latest. It will probably be a good bit longer when final edits are done, so you have that to look forward to!**

 **As always, please let me know if you have any ideas to add to this. I do have several more chapters written, just not edited, so if it doesn't mess with the flow too much, or change later plot points, I'll probably add it in! If I don't, and you review through an account, I will let you know why if you want to know!**


	5. Adventure ot Challenging Children- pt 2

Helga was a very astute child. Even at almost 8 years of age, she understood there was a secret to the people she knew as Rowena and Salazar. She had her suspicions, but kept them to herself for the time being, instead deciding to watch the two teens interact. Nothing could hide the awkward shuffling around each other they both did; she suspected they were deeply in love, and neither realized it quite yet, or were pretending not to. Hippolyta seemed to also know about them, but both Thespis and Apollo were blissfully unaware. Helga found pleasure in their awkwardness, although she personally thought she never wanted to fall in love if it would make her into such a crazed fool, unable to act normally around someone she had known for a long time the moment her attraction set in.

Even with her greater maturity, Helga was still only nearly 8, best the Hufflepuffs could tell. And 8 was usually when young girls would go through a phase in which boys are "icky", just as boys do the same with girls. Salazar, Apollo, Thespis, and her father, Nik, were all ok, because they were _old_ \- or at least, they all qualified as such in Helga's mind. The Gryffindor boy, Gavin, was icky; not only was he younger, but he was of the mindset that he oughtn't listen to her because she was a girl! The injustice of it never failed to rile Helga, and Gavin had been smacked across the face many a time for his attitude for her, both by Helga herself, and Gavin's father, Gawain.

Fiery temper aside, Helga was very intellectual. She was able to use magic to almost as great effect as most Hogwarts third years in 2013 could, and was only limited by her relatively smaller magical core (although it was still larger than some of the grown people Harry and Hermione had met in the future).

The little strawberry blond seemed to really enjoy Hermione's company, almost to the point that Hermione considered telling her the truth within a couple days of meeting her. Hermione always pulled back out at the last minute, usually at Harry's insistence. They finally came to a compromise, about 2 weeks into her staying with them- she could tell Helga her real name, and the truth of when she was from, and, if she reacted well, Harry could tell her his real name.

She responded well to Hermione's reveal, overall, but Harry still thought he should wait a little while to tell her the truth about himself, which upset Hermione. It led to one of their first fights, with Hermione winning in that Harry agreed to tell Helga of his circumstances, but, a win for Harry, not his real name. They chose Leontes as his false name, going by "Leo" as his nickname. Hermione began calling him "Leo" most of the time, and the three adults all started to as well, because no one knew when Helga would next come by, once her parents returned. Both teens found the joke rather funny, ignoring the fact that the Shakespearean king had disbelieved Hermione falsely, ruining their relationship, as no one else knew it, not even the three adults they lived with.

Helga enjoyed the company of both "Leo" and Hermione, and so, even when Hannah was home again (without Nik, who remained in the north, studying with another scholar), Helga would have "sleepovers" with Hermione, to give Hannah a break from the exuberant child. As time went on, Helga became more erratic in her thought processes and timing, much to Hermione's chagrin. She and Harry began working through their issues, although there were strangely unanswerable questions that Harry in particular had.

One question that Helga was more than happy to help "Leo" through was figuring out was why he could suddenly remember his entire life up to that point. True, his memory had always been somewhat stronger than a normal person's, but he suddenly could remember every detail of every second of his life, and he could call up specific details at a moment's notice.

For some strange reason, Helga reminded "Leo" of Luna. She lacked a belief in semi-imaginary creatures (after all, Luna could see actual auras, but made them into something a little more concrete to be able to talk about them), but could see through "Leo's" masks as easily as Hermione; sometimes, she could even do so easier than Hermione. She understood his pain at his birth mother and adoptive father dying while he was so young; her own biological father had died when she was that age, and her mother had died not two years before. Her adoptive parents had cared for her for almost her entire life, as her mother had been on her deathbed when the Hufflepuffs found them. Harry thought Helga to be a time traveller, because she spoke the languages they taught her with a very faint, modern, English accent, but Hermione insisted that she did not understand modern English, past the point they had taught her.

Harry endeavoured to prove her wrong. It did not work the first time he tried, nor the second time. The third time was equally frustrating, and also embarrassing, and so he stopped. He would never again try to get Helga to laugh at stupid little games, like the "I-C-U-P" his cousin had enjoyed when they were younger (and admittedly, probably still enjoyed). Hermione's face at Harry trying to get those sorts of things- the things that modern native English speakers usually noticed, and non-native speakers did not- through to Helga was usually one of displeasure at his crudeness.

The months passed into winter, and they had bonfires to keep warm during market. Yule was an amazing holiday for Harry and Hermione, both of them never having had a traditional solstice festival to attend before. The dancing and folk songs were fantastic to Harry, while Hermione enjoyed making all the different types of breads that they ate on each night of the holiday. All too soon, the year ended, bringing in 985, and they delved back into their studies.

* * *

Over the several months, Harry and Ariel corresponded with each other, almost on a daily basis. For Harry, it was freeing to be able to speak his mind to someone besides those he lived with. With all the visits from Helga, he always had to carefully hide some of the facts about who he was, but with Ariel, he felt no such impulses. She was bound just as tightly to the Slytherin family magic as he was, and therefore was unable to reveal anything dangerous about him.

The Slytherins were a special sort of family. Most of the families of the time- like the Smiths, Potters, Blacks, Whites, and Weasleys- had succession rules in place so that only married sons with heirs could inherit anything. There were notably few families like the Ravenclaws- matrilineal, instead of patrilineal- but they did exist, and daughters would usually keep the name, while sons would take their wife's name. Then, there were the few families like the Peverells, Hufflepuffs, and Slytherins. The daughters of the House would take the name of their husband, but, ultimately, they would belong to their natal House. Inheritance would fall along the lines of birth order, not gender and then birth order, with anyone, married or not, receiving the inheritance they were due as the eldest, or youngest, or middle child.

As she would always belong to the Slytherin family, even once she married the horrid Olaf Gaunt, eldest son of Grant Gaunt, she would always be as firmly bound to the Slytherin family as Harry. As both Harry and Salazar were a couple weeks older than her, both were first in the line of succession after Apollo and Loki, for the few months both Loki and Salazar were alive. Part of the family magic was to help keep Slytherin family secrets remain such.

Harry thoroughly enjoyed signing letters as "Regards from- Adrian Slytherin", or, even better, "With love, from your Uncle Harry". Ariel seemed just as excited to sign as "As always, warm wishes- Ariel Slytherin" or "With hugs, from your niece Ariel", for she always would sign in one of those two ways on her letters.

Although Harry knew he would have to one day take on the formal role of being her uncle, for now, he was content to be the long-distance big brother Ariel's letters suggested she needed.

Part of her contract with the Gaunts forbade direct physical contact between her and anyone outside her immediate family (i.e. mother and father), besides her Head of House, until the Gaunts had proceeded with the task of setting a date for the wedding in several years' time. This included Harry, much to his annoyance. It made sense, of course, as the contract was intended to give her no room to wriggle out of the mess without the Gaunts being alright with it, which precluded her from falling in love with any random guy.

She would often vent her frustrations at being confined to her home, and the small swathe of surrounding land, and the other small swathes of land, owned either by the Gaunts or the Slytherins, unable to leave.

She was allowed out and about on chaperoned visits to landmarks with her future fiancé or his mother, but, as she vehemently reminded Harry, she did not wish to have to interact with him any more than necessary.

Instead, she remained in her home, practically devouring every new book her mother brought home for her, working on her artwork, or else trying to ease her boredom in any other manner she could come up with. Her one uncensored view of the outside world was through the letters between her and Harry. Sometimes, he would sketch the things and people around him (one memorable occasion, he tried to sketch Hermione. It did not turn out well), to try to help Ariel feel less alone.

She never tried to sketch herself, or her mother, although there were a couple times where she sketched Olaf Gaunt, or his mother, Lacey. Harry sincerely hoped she exaggerated some of his features, but, as she never did so with any of her other images (certainly not his mother's), near as he could tell, he instead sincerely hoped the whole Gaunt family was hit with an infertility curse, which would break the bonds of the contract, freeing both Ariel and her descendants. He was personally unable to help her, due to the contract (something about foul play, according to Apollo when he suggested it), so he settled for listening to her.

According to Ariel, her future mother in law was a daft blonde bimbo who was completely illiterate that married the Gaunt heir in the hopes of securing her future in the Wizarding world. Ariel did not look forward to her future of following the whims of a woman who understood nothing of the culture Ariel was raised in, as Lacey was a witch adopted by two Muggles who found her abandoned on the side of the road.

Harry found himself thinking she had almost as bad luck as he himself did.

* * *

This year was a big year for both Harry and Hermione. Males came into their inheritance at 15 years of age, while females came into it at 16 years, so Harry and Hermione were scouring the books they had brought back in time with them to see if there were any hints about creature blood in either of their families. Inheritances dictated the age of magical maturity, but, if one did not inherit anything on their 15th or 16th birthdays, they could easily assume they would have their magical maturity at 17.

Hermione was worried she'd become a werewolf, like her father, but Harry assured her that the werewolf gene did not wait for a person's magical majority. Harry, meanwhile, worried that he would be so magical he'd explode. Reading through all the information about his family, he had found out that the Evans family was known for being part elf (which made sense, considering Apollo's life history and family members), while the Holmes family could be just about anything. He was already pretty sure that he'd look at least a little more elf-like, but he worried if there was any other inheritance he did not know about. He'd hate to be the first male empousai in centuries, for example. According to Mycroft, when Harry had asked several years before, Sherlock was 100% human wizard, even if he did have an exceptionally large magical core. Sherlock had insisted he wasn't, but, when he could not provide proof that he was anything other than human, he had admitted that, yes, he was merely human. Harry personally thought he had agreed too readily, and therefore had suspicions regarding Sherlock's truthfulness, but, due to the very small amount of information about creature inheritances in the Holmes family, had to accept it at face value. In Harry's mind, it was a defeat. In Hermione's, it was merely how things tended to go in Harry's life, and therefore could be left at that.

The knowledge of the Slytherin family's heritage only worried Harry further. Apollo had explained, multiple times, about the fact that he was half-elf (when one must be a tiny bit more than 50% elvin to go through the change, it becomes pretty obvious that his father was not elvin), and part-human, part latent veela (meaning any daughters he had would be veela, but he himself was not one. One day, Harry would find the coding on Apollo's X-chromosome for being a veela was only a partial coding, and Apollo happened to have the "veela block" on his Y-chromosome). Looking at Apollo's family history, Ellie Slytherin had identified veela within the past few generations, and managed to create the spells that killed all male sperm and then all female sperm. She used chickens as her test subjects, creating the male-killing one first, and then reversed it and figured it out in one try to kill female cells. She cast it on Apollo on their wedding night, after they enjoyed one of the roosters her experiments yielded for dinner. The only reason for that was that she did not want any of her children over-sexualized or otherwise abused, as young veela often were by men outside their families.

Harry had seen that spell classified as "dark" in the Ministry guidelines. He thought that the Ministry might have made the "dark" guidelines so that the bigoted purebloods knew what to teach their children themselves, as he doubted most Hogwarts professors would have taught any students how to cast such spells. With only a few months to go until Harry's birthday, they got to work studying anything and everything they could find, to try to find out all they actually had to worry about.

Ariel eased his worries, at least. She had no veela traits, as far as she or her mother were aware, and, as Hermione showed traits, despite no inheritance yet, they were relatively certain Ariel did not carry any traits. There had been no male veela in their family in thousands of years, which also helped Harry to feel calmer about it all. After all, they were so rare, in modernity they were thought a myth. The only reason Harry worried about it was because things always had a way of happening to him.

* * *

In mid-March, Helga came over in the middle of the day, talking only of the young boy she had seen on her way there. She had not seen where he came from (as she took a cut-through through the woods, contrary to what her mother always insisted upon), but the dark-haired boy had severe magical exhaustion. There was a girl with vibrant red hair with him, she claimed. Her eyes were the same colour as "Leo's", but magical exhaustion had caused her to die soon after Helga had come across them, they found out later. Helga was not present when she died; instead, another villager had happened across the two of them when they had followed her through the woods to make sure she didn't get lost, hurt, or stuck somewhere. No one knew where the children came from, and the boy seemed to be having temporary amnesia, as he would only speak in Latin, and could not tell anyone where he came from. The words seemed to stick inhis mouth, which made many people think he might be a druid, as the druids were known for not allowing others to know where they were.

The village had a "small" burial for the girl, as no one knew anything about either of the children. Neither of the teens attended, although Apollo did, saying he felt it was important for her to have someone there for her, rather than the intrigue of it all. Other families came out in droves, as though it was some sort of funeral for a head of state, for the sake of having whoever's family it was be indebted to them, for attending their child's funeral. Even if she was "just" a druid's daughter, it was sometimes great to have a druid on your side in a conflict. If she were far-away nobility, then it would be even better, as that would be a possible alliance for many of the families present. The boy attended the funeral, not confirming nor denying that it was his sister they were burying. Helga was there as emotional support for him, with Hannah there alongside Apollo and the boy to represent also the girl's family and their interests during the funeral.

He was certainly emotional enough for it to have been his sister, or a close relative, which lent credence to the idea that they could be druids, as the druids were often one large family unit where all children were cared for by all those around them. This caused insanely close bonds between all those in any given generation, and was part of the reason the druids were so reclusive.

The Gryffindors offered to care for the boy. Not knowing what else to do, he had agreed, and they were caring for him for the interim, until his parents or guardians could be found. 8-year-old Helga seemed excited to have a new friend, although she never mentioned that he was just a little bit older than 7 years of age, meaning she could boss him around if she wanted to. Apollo found that out from a conversation with Gavin Gryffindor, during one of the pre-apprenticing interviews.

* * *

The next time they saw Helga, it was at market, showing the boy around. She introduced them to Godric Gryffindor, explaining he had wished for a familiar face to show him around the market. He was suffering from amnesia due to his severe magical overload, and subsequent explosion. Being older than Gavin Gryffindor had made the 6-year-old a little resentful of him, as Godric would probably inherit everything if Lord Gawain Gryffindor died before he did. The adoption would happen within the next week, so that Lord Gryffindor would have the power to apprentice him off to a powerful sorcerer or mage knight. As "Leo" was already technically apprenticed to Thespis, and Gavin would be apprenticed to Apollo at Yuletide, Lord Gryffindor was looking everywhere for someone who would maybe work as his mentor.

Godric looked somewhat similar to "Leo", as Helga had introduced Harry as (to Harry's unease), but only as much as, for example, Draco Malfoy (the reason Harry had a sour view on the Slytherins of modern day) would look to Sirius Black, who was Malfoy's mother's cousin on both sides of his mother's family and his father's second cousin. Obviously, Malfoy had the Malfoy hair, but the rest was pretty much how a Black looked, rather than a Malfoy. Like Harry himself his first year, Malfoy was often told how like his father he looked, despite only having the same hair colour and looking almost exactly like his mother.

Both were thin, although Godric lacked the pinched, hungry look that Leo had at his age, and was taller. Both had somewhat unruly, dark hair, although Godric's was closer to dark brown than black, and very curly, while Leo's was closer to black than dark brown, and just stuck up everywhere. Godric needed no glasses, for his sharp, dark blue eyes missed little, although he seemed overwhelmed by everything going on around him.

He seemed to know what to look for in foods, and so helped the teens decide on food for supper that night. He especially seemed to know honey, and how to tell its quality; he claimed his grandfather kept bees when he was very young, and he wanted to do the same when he was older. At Hermione's insistence, both children came over to watch "Leo" learn how to make some grilled honey chicken for supper. They had a fun afternoon together, and Godric began to feel more comfortable in his new environment. He began asking questions- almost as many as Hermione had when she moved in with John, Sherlock, and Harry. Lord Gryffindor came to bring both children home (via the approved route, not through the woods), and then Harry and Hermione retired for the night.

* * *

The next time they went to market, they found out Lord Gryffindor was sending Godric to France to apprentice under one of the knights there. He seemed amendable to it, claiming he had a functioning knowledge of French, although Hermione expressed her worry about him being so far away. When he mentioned that this knight, a Delacroix, was related to someone he could barely remember from before his accident, she let it drop. They all understood that the accident had been somewhat traumatic to Godric, as he had left everything he had ever known behind when he came to the woods they had found him in. There were still no leads as to where he was from, although, with his dark hair and light eyes, he fit well the description of a druid or one of the locals. For now, he would be one of the locals, studying abroad, until they could piece together what happened to him and his sister. He never argued that she wasn't his sister, after all, and they looked somewhat similar, other than her bright red hair.

The rest of the day at market went well, although several young men tried to approach Thespis for Rowena's hand. He refused each time, stating Apollo was already negotiating on Salazar's behalf. Soon those offers died down, and Apollo really did begin negotiating on Harry's behalf, at Hippolyta's insistence.

Helga stayed with them for a couple weeks when Godric left, as her parents accompanied the Gryffindors to France, to join with a couple of other witches and wizards in researching the magic of the freshwater of Divona. They claimed it would be dangerous, as gillyweed is rather dangerous for children under the age of 10 or so, as their magic would warp to adapt to their environment, but then not warp back, causing them to be stuck living underwater for the rest of their lives.

They only knew this because that was how the merpeople in the Black Lake came about, a few decades before. Several children had snuck into their parents' potion supply cupboard, and found the gillyweed, which one of the older children had read about. All they wanted to do was explore the lake, but they ended up stuck. It took a good 5 months for people to figure out where they went, and that was a chance encounter.

The gillyweed had matured them all to become adults, and in doing so, it destroyed the part of their brains for human logic, giving them logic far surpassing that of humans, but unable to be expressed to human beings. It also gave them great sexual libido, meaning their population was a few months away from doubling, as they carried live young, but it was always multiples, like litters of puppies or kittens. These children were born looking like an ugly caricature of the mermaids found in the seas and oceans.

Helga enjoyed telling the two the story, and then tried to convince them that she was old enough to explore the Black Lake, being an eight-year old with a giant magical core.

Leo told her she would be old enough only when she could hold a strong bubblehead charm for at least two hours. Hermione taught her the charm, and she began practicing it, but it became obvious it would take her a while to get to the point Leo wanted her. It exhausted her to hold it longer than five or six minutes, just as Leo thought it would.

He had wanted to do the same sort of thing, after all, when he was her age. He could now hold it, without effort, for close to 3 hours. Hermione was even better at it, due to actual deep-water practice in the Mediterranean, as that was where she went with John and her Aunt Harry (who wanted to get John out of London, therefore financing the entire trip, so he would be unable to say no) the summer before their third year at Hogwarts. Hermione knew it wasn't just meant as an early birthday present for her, but still appreciated the sentiment of someone else looking out for her father.

* * *

Leo began teaching Helga modern Gaelic, instead; it had been a language Luna had helped him learn the year before, and he rather enjoyed it, although Hermione did not enjoy some of the grammar rules. Even though she was able to converse with easy topics (like the weather, or asking directions), Hermione was otherwise unable to speak it well.

Helga really seemed to enjoy it, and soon she and Leo spoke in it to each other, just as Hermione spoke with her in Latin. Hippolyta suggested that they all naturally were able to be polyglots due to their respective heritages. The Hufflepuffs were the last remaining branch of the elves (that became house-elves), to still be practically indistinguishable from humans. Young men, at their inheritance, sometimes became female, and many Hufflepuffs, upon attaining the age of 250, became what Muggles knew as brownies, visibly aging overnight to look like a grandmotherly figure, who could do all sorts of age- and physics-defying stunts to help humanity as a whole. Like all elvin species, they easily learned all the languages they came in contact with- in this case, until their 90th birthday. Helga seemed to enjoy learning from Leo and Hermione, and both enjoyed teaching her. Hermione found it comforting to find she enjoyed teaching, even when the student was especially scatterbrained; the only person she knew that was more so was Luna. Of course, Harry and Hermione did not really know anyone else that was at all like Helga, although Helga would sometimes speak of fashion in ways that reminded Hermione of the two girls in Gryffindor in their year. Usually, she was pretty sensible, and realized when Hermione tired of such talk. She also knew that "Leo" would be more willing to talk about fashion, and the way it has changed over time, with her.

Helga seemed to enjoy hearing about all their friends in the future, and Luna became her role model. She preferred Leo to tell her about Luna, because he knew Luna better than Hermione, who often would get headaches talking to Luna. Luna's mind was much more like Harry's, and therefore they enjoyed talking to each other, neither directing the conversation, but allowing it to take them wherever it wished. Neither judged the other for allowing the conversation to go somewhere somewhat inappropriate. Thanks to Luna, Harry had a basic understanding of the female reproductive cycle. Sherlock had deemed the topic irrelevant for the time being, Hermione and John were embarrassed to talk about it, and Mrs. Hudson claimed there was little that Harry needed to actually know about it.

After Hermione, Luna was Harry's closest friend. He worried most that she would notice his absence and subsequent change, because he would be ill-equipped to deal with it all. He at least would have a couple months to work on acting as 13-year-old Harry again for Sherlock, and some of the changes could be blamed on the school year. Hermione wanted him to be honest with Luna from their return onward, as she doubted they both could keep it secret from her. Luna was too observant to not realize something had changed, especially when one considered the way she could see relationships between people. Harry doubted he and Hermione would be able to hide that, at least, from Luna.

Their other friends were more acquaintances than anything else. Padma Patil shared a room with Hermione, and they were relatively well acquainted, but Harry did not know her all that well. Due to his many experiments, Harry had a dorm all to himself, as the other five boys all refused to room with him on the basis that he could accidentally create a toxin that would kill them in their sleep without even realizing it.

Harry thought it was unfair of Terence (Terry) Boot, Seamus Finnegan, Matthew (Matt) Jordon, Matthew McKinnon, and Gleb Romanov to single him out like that, when he knew for a fact that Finnegan was a pyromaniac, and Romanov had a whole secret weed-growing operation running out of their bathroom (and a huge arsenal of poisons in his trunk, a fact none of the other boys knew).

There weren't any others in their year in Ravenclaw, as Sally-Anne Perks had dropped out of Hogwarts to be homeschooled in the middle of their first year, as a part of what happened with the Philosopher's Stone, and Su Li had transferred to Beauxbatons after being Petrified at the start of their second year. Hermione was not friends with Padma's sister, Parvati, nor their friend, Lavender Brown, both of whom were in Gryffindor. She was willing to be a part of the study group comprised of Fay Dunbar (Gryffindor), Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott (Hufflepuffs), and Tracey Davis and Daphne Greengrass (Slytherins), although Harry thought it was really just an excuse for the smart girls in each House to get together to complain about the idiots they are surrounded with.

As for other boys in their year, there were few worth mentioning. Most of the boys were pretty much, as Mycroft would say, "goldfish". Harry held them in a bit higher regard, for the most part, although there were few that he actually knew the names of. One was Neville Longbottom (nice enough, if a bit shy; absolute prodigy at Herbology), another Ronald Weasley (the human garbage can, as far as Harry or Hermione could tell. After the fiasco on Halloween their first year, they tended to keep their distance from him, although he still ended up in the Chamber with Harry at the end of their second year), then Blaise Zabini (man, was he _interesting_ , with his ties to the Italian mafia and knowledge of magics to harm people in subtle ways), the boy that was always in the other boys' dorm, Dean Thomas (best friends with Seamus Finnegan, had a knack for putting out the fires Seamus started without Seamus realizing) and finally, the "king of the goldfish", one Draco Malfoy, and his two croonies, Crabbe and Goyle. Harry only knew those last two names because they sounded how he'd imagine the two would sound if they were a noise instead of a person. They fit firmly into the goldfish category, along with pretty much the rest of the school. The Weasley twins were exciting, and very un-goldfish-like, as were most of the Ravenclaw quidditch team (except that vapid fangirl, Cho Chang), and most of the Gryffindor team (even if Wood was a little fanatic about the game, like Davies, the only annoying member of the team was also the newest- the Weasley girl, Ginny, another vapid fangirl). Helga enjoyed hearing about the bumblings of one Draco Malfoy, and found it hilarious that Malfoy fancied himself "Leo's" arch nemesis, when the title obviously had to go to one Tom Marvolo Riddle. Even Riddle was somewhat of a bumbling idiot, in Harry's mind, because he could have just worked toward political domination with his known link to the Slytherin family, and taken everything over in a political sense, destroying Dumbledore's reputation in the process, thereby defeating his only opposition.

Or, at least, that's what Harry would have done if he wanted to dominate the Wizarding world's politics.

Helga was more than willing to listen to both of them in their problems, most of which stemmed from impatience with the other, after being cooped up together for so long. They managed for a time to keep from mentioning the exact time they came from to her, as Leo felt it was important, in case she went searching for them, and accidentally ended up finding them too soon, at which point the world would implode. Maybe.

* * *

In the middle of April, she managed to bring them out on a picnic. Godric had left for France the month before, and she was feeling a little out of place, despite the brevity of her friendship with him. To cheer her up, Leo had offered anything it was within his power to provide her with, and she had insisted upon a picnic, despite the chill still present in the air.

It was a great picnic, although the highlight was seeing a phoenix appear in front of them, carrying a scroll from Godric to Helga. He wrote solely of his new life in France, with the highlight being his new knight master's excursion with him to a market place for a familiar, and this phoenix, Fawkes, choosing him as his wizard. He asked after Helga, Leo, and Hermione, and then signed off.

They wrote their reply on the parchment Leo had brought for Helga to sketch on, telling him little about what was going on, because little was happening. After the phoenix left, they went back to the cabin, where Hermione tried to teach Helga a couple of Muggle board games from their time. Helga completely missed the point on most of them, which frustrated Hermione. It was not until they got to Monopoly, however, that Hermione gave up. Helga kept trying to gift both of the teens with properties when they landed on her spaces, so that they wouldn't have to pay rent, which was a somewhat foreign concept to Helga, having never been in charge of any sort of finances. The fifth time it happened, Hermione finally threw her hands in the air and announced that Helga would not do well in the 21st century, if she ever wished to visit them there, as people there just did not understand kindness the way Helga used it. Hannah came in to tell those present that they had made it home safely (no closer to understanding the water of Divona, but not for lack of trying), and Helga went home soon after without finishing the conversation.

The next couple months passed rather quietly, with maybe a letter from Godric, or a visit from Helga, or a day at the market. On a busy day, it could be a combination of the three, although that was rather rare.

* * *

The one thing that was always sure to break the tedium, for Harry, were the letters from Ariel. They had become much like siblings, something neither of them had. All Harry wanted for his little "sister" was for her husband to be good enough for her.

Unfortunately, none of the Gaunts were, none of those married into the Gaunt family were, and the Gaunts had great lawyers, so all the magically binding contracts with them were ironclad.

Without quite meaning to, Harry slowly shifted to writing in Parseltongue to Ariel. He already spoke the language almost exclusively when it was just him and Apollo, especially as visits to Slytherin Manor became more frequent over the next few months, as Apollo wished to have his son recognize his ancestral home as a home, and not a house, like Apollo himself did for the first few years of his Lordship. It was especially likely that he would write in the language if a letter arrived when it was just the two of them, although sometimes Apollo would remind him to write in English, if he saw what Harry was doing.

The Gaunts seemed secure in the contract, knowing that Ariel would have to provide them with at least one heir, unless their line went suddenly extinct. There were no stipulations about what happened after her husband died, but few widows were able to remarry, unless it was to a widower. Even that was frowned upon, as it supposedly "muddied" the lines of succession. Harry hoped that Ariel would be able to bear a Gaunt a kid or two, the Gaunt would die, and then Ariel could remarry, or just move into Hogwarts upon the point of its completion, and teach art while she decided what she wanted to do with her life.

* * *

Sometimes they would run into Hannah at the market, but, as Nik had decided Helga needed a proper education, it was very rare that they saw her at market. Rowena would sometimes come visit the Hufflepuffs, to help Nik teach Helga some of the basics, as Helga's endless questions were bound to be wearying. Nik seemed to enjoy it when Rowena came over, as her help freed him to do other things. Due to the nature of their own lessons, however, Rowena could not come very often, as the teens would often be learning from their own family at about the same time as Helga was learning from Nik. Nik and Hannah did ask Rowena to teach Helga about puberty, but, when Ro was unable to get through it without stuttering, they asked Salazar instead. The conversation went rather well, all things considered, although some of the questions Helga asked Leo were rather personal and made him turn rather red.

The month and a half before Leo's birthday passed rapidly in this way. A week before, Apollo took him on a camping trip, just the two of them, deep in the Forbidden forest. It was the first time it had been just the two of them for an _extended_ period of time (Harry pretty much always slept at the Ravenclaw home), and both felt fulfilled from the experience.

They discussed what could happen, and Apollo reminded Harry that being an elf wouldn't be a _bad_ thing, just an interesting experience. He also gave Harry a gift that had both of them in tears: Elizebeth's wedding ring, on a chain, to wear around his neck. Apollo explained how Elizebeth kept appearing in his dreams, asking him to care for their third son for her. Neither male had mentioned the woman they saw during the ritual to any of the others- few, if any, had the power to recall the dead for such a ritual- but both knew they should really acknowledge that, somehow, she had come for it. They were content doing so between themselves for the time being. Apollo was sure that Hippolyta, at least, suspected something of the sort. Harry's nose, after all, had not shifted as much as they thought it would. From pictures, it looked as though the Holmes family may have mixed with the Prince family, as the nose in modern times was the same for both. They discussed what Harry could expect from his inheritance, and tried to use divination to figure out what Harry would look like. They came to the agreement that it was unlikely that Harry would become an elf, as neither Lily nor Sherlock were part elf, so far as they knew, so Apollo would merely not take a sleeping potion (as he usually did) on Harry's birthday eve. Having bonded a bit more fully, they packed up camp and returned to the Ravenclaw home.

Just before they left, Harry did carve a small heart on one of the trees, filling in, in Parseltongue, _Apollo & Elizebeth forever_. He and Apollo did not notice the way the heart glowed gold for just a moment, before the carving sank into the tree, leaving behind no mark whatsoever on the bark, as Apollo had created a Portkey that activated moments before the event.

* * *

 **A/N: Thanks for bearing with me on this! I should really just stop promising when chapters will come out. I'll aim for just as soon as I finish writing about an equal amount as I'll be posting next time, and editing the next part, for the next chapter.**

 **I really hoped to get to the birthdays in this chapter, but then reached about 6500 words, and about 9 months of time in-story, so figured I should stop to have something saved up.**

 **If anyone wants to beta any of this, please let me know! Likewise, if you have any questions or concerns about the plot, characters, or other things, also please let me know!**

 **I changed the rating on the story to M due to some language that will be used in the next couple chapters, and just in general, as the characters become more mature and enter into more adult situations. If this is an issue for you, please let me know, and I can work something out if you want to read still.**

 **Finally, if there's anyone you want me to put in more of, that would be great to know. Obviously the 4 Founders will be some of the central characters, but if there are any other suggestions or requests for other central characters, I'd like to know.**


	6. Adventure ot Challenging Children- pt 3

It was Leo's birthday the next day. The teens bid farewell to Helga, who was going on a trip with her parents the next morning (this time to the southern tip of Spain, to see a herd of hippocampi that Nik had heard was migrating through), so would be gone for a while. None of the Hufflepuffs knew exactly how long they would be gone, but Leo and Hermione were excited for Helga to get to see the world. Hermione joined Leo in his annual habit of waiting for midnight, although this year was different- this year, he'd possibly need painkillers after the clock struck midnight.

The adults had all gone to bed. Usually, they did not celebrate any birthdays after the child was ten, except for the one for magical majority, at 17. Most people did not come into an obvious inheritance at 14 or 15. It created a peaceful, quiet, atmosphere, but Harry was highly strung. All three adults seemed to think that, as Harry had no reason to believe he would have any magical inheritances, he would not. With Apollo being half-elf, Harry was only a quarter-elf, near as the adults figured, so they doubted Harry would have anything happen to him.

Harry himself believed that, as the elvin genes were mostly dominant, and he already looked a lot like Apollo, he probably inherited mostly elvin genes from him, placing him closer to 45% elvin from Apollo's contribution. He just couldn't shake the feeling that something had happened in his early life, to cause him to forget something crucial about his parents that would support his thought process. Hermione took his side, or at least said she did, to his face, and so agreed to stay up with him as moral support.

* * *

Harry and Hermione did something they had not done in almost a year- sat on the floor, talking about nothing of importance. Quite a large portion of their chatter was remembering the other students at Hogwarts, and talking about inconsequential things, like the chance Gryffindor House had at winning the House Cup in 2014. The Slytherins had won for longer than either of them had attended Hogwarts, and so they were hoping for anyone to win the House Cup but them. That was part of the reason for the new brooms; after all, if everyone had equal brooms, then they would hopefully have a slightly more equal chance of winning. Harry did not really care for Quidditch, much preferring stunts, but, as a seeker, he was able to do a lot more stunting and less game play, so it was all ok. Cho Chang (the fangirl) had wanted to be a Chaser anyway. He was the youngest seeker in a century, having been chosen for the team as a first year. His blowing up the fake Philosopher's Stone their first year had given him detentions until the end of the school year their first year, making him ineligible to play in the final game. They had flattened Gryffindor and Hufflepuff already that year. It was Slytherin that they lost to, due to their lack of Seeker, thus precluding them from the finals. The conversation trailed off at that point, but it was a companionable silence, each lost in their own thoughts and memories.

* * *

 _Sally-Anne Perks had accompanied Harry and Hermione to save the Philosopher's Stone that March, but had been terrified when Voldemort had appeared on the back of their teacher's head. She fainted before Harry had tasted the Stone (a little too much Doctor Who, if you asked Hermione) and realized it wasn't the real deal._

 _The two first years hadn't been the ones to blow it up. Harry kept it to himself that it wasn't the real stone, and gave it to Voldemort, who then blew it up in a fit of rage when he did not get his body back, and Quirrell's failed from overuse. Dumbledore tried to claim that Harry had been foolish, as he did not know as much about magic as he should to make that sort of call about the Stone (what if he was wrong?), especially just from tasting it. What Dumbledore did not understand was that Harry was already mostly sure at that point about the Stone being a fake. It was hard not to be, when you were as sensitive to magic as Harry was. However, even the feeling he got from it (it felt more "hypothermic" than "hyperthermic" in terms of the power around it) was not his first clue. His first clue, of course, was that it was somewhere a homicidal madman could get to it, instead of being where the Flamels had kept it for centuries without it being stolen. Sherlock had met the Flamels, and even the recommendation of Horace Slughorn (an acquaintance, if you will) was not enough for him to be allowed to even be in the same room as the Stone._

 _Sherlock, being a wizard, luckily was able to come to Harry's defence. There had been rumours that Harry had been adopted by the Holmes heir (Mycroft was unable to inherit the Wizarding holdings, due to being a Squib), due to that being the name he had been called with to be Sorted, but Harry had never substantiated that rumour. He had gone by "Harry Potter" up to that point in the school year, as he and Sherlock were pretending that the adoption was only in the Magical World, and not the Muggle one, meaning his primary caretaker would be his aunt and uncle._

 _It had been a nasty shock to Dumbledore to find out that his pawn was no pawn, and the easiest means of making him back into a pawn were deceased. The Muggle law stood against him, and there were even checkpoints present, meaning Dumbledore couldn't just fake it. "The British Government" was watching especially closely in this case, and that meant Dumbledore could do nothing._

 _Harry wondered if Arabella Figg, his batty Squib neighbour, had told Dumbledore about the Dursleys dying. He doubted it. He figured Dumbledore may have made her Secret-Keeper, and placed him under a heavily modified Fidelius, which caused even Dumbledore to forget that Harry was in Surrey. It certainly explained how the authorities had so much trouble with his guardianship, if they kept forgetting that the Dursleys' nephew lived with them as well. Arabella Figg was the only one without that issue, and anyone she told would remember for a few days, and then need to be reminded._

 _She was one of the few who believed Sherlock's claim as father, when he stepped forward mere hours after the Dursleys died. Testing showed that he was, so Harry had to live with Marge Dursley for a while, while they tested his ability as a parent, and to make sure he was not responsible in some way for the Dursleys' deaths._

 _It was horrible, being alone with Marge and Dudley, and, worse yet, the courts finally came to the decision that Sherlock would have to undergo testing once a year to make sure Harry was safe around him alone (Sherlock claimed they had discovered his toe collection, and found it disturbing to the point Mycroft could do nothing). During that time, he would remain with his cousin and his cousin's aunt, probably enduring verbal abuse from the elder, and physical bullying from the younger._

 _Sherlock's announcement that he was a wizard a week after Harry had moved in explained a lot more than it didn't. They started that very evening on his magical control, and then discussed education from that point onward the next morning. Both agreed that Harry would probably do best going to Hogwarts, and then working at his non-magical studies during the summers and breaks._

 _The entire story coming out seemed to shock Dumbledore, that such a thing could happen right under his (overly long) nose without his noticing any of it. Even the educational reform that Sherlock pushed toward was deemed "inconsequential", as Dumbledore could well remember the schoolboy he had taught (well, not taught, but been Headmaster to) about a decade previous had been very concerned about the education Muggleborns received upon entering Hogwarts, and then the opportunities that awaited them after graduation._

 _His policies had already caused the Ministry great amounts of grief, as they now had to be transparent in their hiring process, and hire whoever was most qualified by looking at the student numbers on the OWLs and NEWTs, instead of looking at the applicant's name. Various positions in the Ministry now held various requirements that they did not before- as an example, the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister had to have passed at least 80% of their NEWTs on the first or second try, and had to have taken at least 5 NEWTs. Suddenly, the Senior Undersecretary was always Muggleborn, as few others take that many NEWTs, due to the time commitments of each course offered at Hogwarts. Side riders to these bills included making it illegal for the press to take, and publish, photographs of current or past students of the British Magical Education System without their verbal consent (even if they were famous celebrities), and their guardian's written consent, from while they were still minors, or attending school (whichever came first). Another rider was that all students had to pay the same amount of tuition (i.e. so-called "legacy students" did not get a discount on tuition). The only exception was the tuition for children demonstrably living in the same household, such as siblings, where there was both a family maximum (equal to paying for three students in a year), and the students within a household all had the same tuition cost (i.e. 2/3 for a family with two children, ½ for a family with three, and free for a family with four or more)._

 _Tuition would also cover both the actual tuition, and the fees associated with living for the amount of time they students live at the school. Included in the tuition was the cost for the full 10 months the students were in school, including holidays during those ten months, so that no family would be burdened with trying to pay for their child to stay at the school if their homelife was unsafe over a break. Sherlock claimed that that was how it was when Hogwarts opened, just not by law, but rather procedure. Over time, tuition rates increased for Muggleborn students, while staying at the same rate as when the school opened for the purebloods. Inflation, according to Sherlock, really existed in the Wizarding World, just at a slower rate than in the nonmagical world._

 _The final rider, the one which made Sherlock both gleeful and sick to think about, because it could make or break their plotting, was that the Headmaster of Hogwarts did not automatically receive custody of orphans or Muggleborn students (who invariably attended Hogwarts). This piece would be slowly retroactive, so that, by the time Harry Potter started Hogwarts, he would have been given guardianship in the Magical World to someone that was friends with his parents, and could write him letters about them, so he could learn more about his heritage. It had the side effect of giving Muggle parents the ability to meet several people and having the choice of whom to entrust their child to. Few of the Muggle parents were pleased by the cultish hero-worship of various members of the Order of the Phoenix toward Albus Dumbledore, or the obviously racist beliefs espoused by those that followed Voldemort (no parents, to date, had chosen a previous Death Eater), leaving a bunch of the members of the so-called "Grey" faction to become Magical Guardians. Families of previously little notoriety now could easily back promising young Muggleborns, increasing both their own wealth and status, and that of the Muggleborn. The families entered into partnerships, introducing each other to their own lives, and, even in the three years it had been in effect, there had been an increase in Muggle-Wizard marriages, often of siblings or close relatives or friends to the students and their Magical Guardians. The eventual plan, for about a decade after it goes into effect, is to introduce these families early, so that the children in both families could grow up and be comfortable in both the Magical and non-Magical worlds._

 _Albus Dumbledore had not read the bill carefully. The obscure wording of the rider was "the Hogwarts Headmaster will return to duties as stated in the original, unedited Hogwarts charter. Additionally, magical guardianship of orphans, assuming no provisions in their deceased guardian's will, and those born in the nonmagical world will follow the same charter in terms of placement, once the child is introduced to the magical world." He had dug around for the original Hogwarts charter, only to find that some no-name Grey halfblood third year had checked it out of the library for the next month, leaving him with the next edition remaining, from the late 13th century. Reading that, he found that the charter stated his duties as what he assumed them to already be. Thinking that the charter couldn't possibly change that much, he had "allowed" the bill through (not that he could have done much, considering that the "Dark" and "Grey" factions agreed on the bill, once one of their daughters had checked the book out from the library and made copies of the sections the rider concerned)._

 _He still did not know what had happened until the middle of Harry's first year, as he had long ago passed off the unofficial parts of the guardianship to Minerva McGonagall. He never even paid attention to the last names, which students sometimes took (in the magical world) to honour their magical guardians, at the Sortings. All he had to do was sign the papers, and, over the course of a week, his deputy brought him many papers- budgets, disciplinary notices, Hogwarts letters, and bills for sherbet lemons, to name but a few- so he figured he must have signed the guardianship papers at some point, and just forgot. After all, he kept forgetting if he had signed for his favourite yellow candies, but they kept arriving._

 _Little did he know that Minerva McGonagall was unhappy, once she had approached the prodigy known as Sherlock Holmes. Living with him was a little boy, the spitting image of James Potter, but way too small, with Lily Evans-Potter's vibrant green eyes. James Potter had been afflicted by Osteogenesis Imperfecta (somewhat common in older families), she knew, but his son did not seem to have the condition, probably saved from it by Lily's ingenuity. Yet, he stood even smaller than his father had, at the age of 8, and she knew immediately that it was from the abuse her former student had saved him from. Based on the smells coming from the man's kitchen, it was obvious that he was actively working to help the boy. Based on her knowledge of Albus' disdain for Lily Potter's ex-boyfriend, she knew that the help would cease the moment she told Albus of Harry's whereabouts, if the law remained as it was. Upon realizing how much he was trying to help Harry, whom he would probably be more likely to resent as a symbol of his once-fiancée's moving on, she looked closer and immediately realized that Dumbledore's meddling had at least somewhat contributed to a father not meeting his biological son until he was almost 6. She had immediately demanded to see a copy of the original charter, and found the entire section about unplaced minors to her liking, as it was quite easily applicable in most situations. It also lessened her work load, as she could bring a bunch of Muggleborns to Diagon Alley, have them brunch with the possible families, and then have that family take their family around Diagon. There were contracts in place that made it impossible for those not chosen to retaliate in any manner, or for anyone to retaliate on a "slighted" family's behalf. Anyone who tried would lose their magic and their senses of smell, hearing, and sight immediately. If they continued with their plan, their life would be forfeit as well._

 _On that day, Sherlock gained a secret accomplice. She managed all the placements, on top of her regular work, with help from Sherlock. Together, they made sure that there was always at least the option of a Grey-leaning family, if not a Dark and a Light as well, instead of two Darks or two Lights. The "grey" grew as more families began thinking about the ramifications of listening to one person in a be-all, end-all sort of manner. Dumbledore quickly lost the support of the Longbottom matriarch, the Flitwick and Sprout families, the Smiths, the (few remaining) McKinnons, and, of course, the McGonagalls. Already classified as "grey" were the Bones, the Prewetts (besides the Weasley matriarch, they all hated Dumbledore for brainwashing the first two boys born into the family in a long time to the point that they went to their deaths willingly), the Abbots, the Perks, the Boots, the Jordons (traditionally Ravenclaws), the Jordans (traditionally Gryffindors), the Greengrasses, the Davises, and the Holmes, to name but a few. Some Muggleborns chose families that were "dark" or "light", but had taken a neutral stance in the last blood war._

 _Minerva also made sure the Muggleborn had time to process everything. About a week before their 11th birthday, or two business weeks before June 1st (the deadline for Hogwarts acceptance was August 1st) if their birthday was in summer, she would tell them about magic, and leave a non-partisan book written about the last century of Magical history around the world, so that they could learn about the world their child now was facing, for them to read. She would then schedule bi-monthly meet-ups in Diagon Alley where families would meet potential Magical Guardians, and decide who they want to have be responsible for their child's introduction to the Magical World._

 _She would give families up to 3 months to understand what was happening, by giving them the list of meet-up dates for the next 3 months, advising that they take their time to read and understand the book prior to attending a meet-up (which they could RSVP to via an email to Sherlock Holmes). For the most part, Sherlock would communicate via letter, or visit to Hogwarts, to Minerva. It was a rare sight for her to be in the flat. Harry supposed it was because he was living with known werewolf Remus Lupin, and the fact that he had a daughter Harry's age. Harry felt it was very obvious that Sherlock wanted to be sure Hermione stayed with them, instead of enduring more body shaming from her mother. Her mother already tried to interfere in Hermione's life, despite no longer having custody in the Muggle world, by telling John that Hermione was too fat. John, being a doctor, already knew that Hermione could maybe tend toward obesity, but, with a proper diet (i.e. low carb, high protein) and more exercise, would be just fine. He was right._

 _Sherlock thought of everything in regards to anyone's custody, not just Harry's own, in the Wizarding World. Harry thought that Sherlock was maybe going to try to become the "Magical British Government" in the way his brother was the "British Government", once he tired of being a consulting detective (of course). He certainly had the framework for it set up._

Harry smirked, remembering how quickly Dumbledore had tried to use outdated back-up plans to place him back with the (deceased) Dursleys when he found out that Sherlock interacted with Harry in a way he had never heard of a magical guardian interacting with someone. Little did he know that Muggleborns all around Britain were welcomed with open arms by their host families, and any children in those families were welcomed by their parents' Muggle counterparts in an equal manner. The blow that Sherlock was Harry's biological father completely cut him off from being able to do anything.

He still had to spend the first couple weeks of summer vacation with Marge and Dudley Dursley, though. For a moment, he thought that it was phantom pains from his first few weeks with Dudley Dursley after receiving a note that he was not allowed to use magic, except in extreme cases of self-defence, but, as the pain intensified, his last thought was "oh, _fuck_." as the village's clock, created centuries before Muggles had the same idea, started tolling midnight.

* * *

Midnight came, and, as Hermione had sort of expected (nothing seemed to go easily when Harry was involved), Harry doubled over in pain. He soon had started writhing on the ground, hissing obscenities in Parseltongue as the changes came into effect.

Thinking quickly, Hermione spelled the pain relief potion into his stomach, only to find that it made his pain seemingly worse. She induced vomiting, correctly supposing that something in the potion was poisonous to him, and he went back to the less frantic movements from before she dosed him.

The racket he was making woke Apollo, who rushed out to see what was wrong. Upon noticing the moon setting in the sky, he correctly deduced that Harry's birthday had come, and he had some sort of inheritance as a result.

Hermione held his head, while Apollo used a cushioning charm on part of the floor. Together, they moved him carefully to the newly softened floor so he wouldn't accidentally hurt himself. They sat vigil, watching him and trying to make sure there was nothing he needed.

When Hippolyta woke up the next morning, it was to find Hermione asleep on Apollo's shoulder, and a young elf passed out on the floor of the house. She woke all three of them, marvelling at how Harry had changed so obviously.

His hair had grown out further, gaining all the length it would have had if he had never had it cut, overnight. It was a mess, due to the length, but it sort of fit with who he had become. His skin was free of acne, his eyes seemed to take up a larger portion of his face, his chin was rather small, as was his nose. His ears tapered to points, just barely sticking out of his hair. He seemed to glow, his eyes seeming extraordinarily vibrant against his rather pale skin, and his lips just as shockingly vibrant against his rather white teeth. Hermione seemed at a loss for words at how to describe him (a first), and how to breathe (also a first).

And that was really the phrase to describe Harry now- breathtakingly beautiful. Hermione felt like the ugly duckling next to him, and promptly began awaiting her own inheritance.

He hadn't even stood up yet, and he was already the most graceful being any of them had ever seen. Even Apollo's mother was not as graceful as he, and yet, Harry looked like a young teen (looking 13, or 14, at the oldest, if he were human). It was an odd juxtaposition, because he retained the height and the almost unhealthy look of someone who had grown a lot in a short amount of time (despite shrinking a couple inches overnight), and therefore should be klutzy. He had been tripping over his feet not two days before, but now, as evidenced when he finally stood up and walked, at Hippolyta's urging, he put any mortal to shame in beauty. He turned walking into dancing, leading Apollo to think that there was something more to his inheritance. Not even elves were that graceful, especially just after coming into their inheritances. Usually, they had to re-learn how to walk and talk, as their muscle and bone structures differed just enough from that of a human to make a difference.

It took Harry looking in a conjured mirror to figure it out. He had intensely studied all he could about any type of possible creature inheritance, researching further than even Hermione had (although, in fairness, she still had a little more than a month to go), and therefore was probably close to an expert on hominoid magical species.

"Well, the ears are obviously elf ears, not that I'm surprised. In fact, I think most of it is elvin, but that can't be all; if it were, I'd probably just look more like a mini Apollo than Apollo does... Fuck that... Hermione, I'm part bloody male veela." His voice had changed slightly. Gone was the cracking and booming of an adolescent boy. Now, it was slightly deeper. It also sounded slightly more confident, and thrummed with power and authority. It was _sexy_ , and sort of made Hermione wish that she didn't have to contradict him. She did ignore his use of a vulgar word, but that was about it.

Harry's announcement made Hermione's eyes narrow slightly. "I take that somewhat offensively, Harry. You look nothing like a veela-"

"-Yet I'm obviously too graceful to be an elf, and something seems slightly _off_ from an elf. I know I'm not part fae or faery, because I'd have wings, for God's sake, but those are the only other ones that make someone graceful from the moment they wake up." No one understood why faeries were graceful after waking up, as they really should have to learn how to balance properly with their new wings throwing off their centre of balance. The popular theory was that those who became a faerie were born feeling the weight of their as-yet non-existent wings.

"But your eyes are still green-"

"-And yours retained the brown colour you were born with when you were adopted, did they not? And yet you definitely look at least part veela. So why can't I be part veela?"

"Harry, dear, you look exactly like an elf. And like an elf, you shrank and sort of de-aged a bit." Hippolyta, it seemed, did not believe him. Or maybe she was just sticking up for Hermione. Either way, it irritated Harry.

"Except for the part where I _don't,_ and I didn't as much as most elves are reported as doing." Thespis and Apollo both nodded, Apollo a bit more empathetically than Thespis, due to his knowledge of how an elf truly ought to look.

"Harry, male veela are supposed to be really, really, really rare. Like, most-people-don't-even-know-they-exist kind of rare. And when they do exist, they're supposed to be completely veela. It's never happened that they are also part elf, or part human. Even I only know about them in the academic sense of 'oh, it is possible, just not completely probable.'"

"And that is an accepted fact? That they're possible, but not all that plausible?"

"Harry, you're going to be _the_ Salazar Slytherin-"

"-all the better reason for my reputed secrecy-"

"-and I don't think the fact that one of the Founders of Hogwarts was a male veela would be lost to history-"

"-unless the only people to ever know were contained within this room, and perhaps the other Founders, and all were sworn to secrecy."

"-and I doubt you would have such rotten luck as to be completely unique-"

"-except we're all unique, genetically, Hermione. You know that. I could just happen to be even more unique."

"-the only one of your sort-"

"-or maybe I'm the first of my sort, and I'm destined to go back to our birth time, and have a son like me. Microevolution and all that."

"Oh, I give up! You're impossible, really!" Harry smirked, knowing he had completely won that argument. His smirk vanished, however, at what Apollo butted in to say.

"I agree with you, Harry. However, that means that your mother probably was not just an Evans, which we now know to be the same Evans family as my mother was a part of, thanks to your elvin inheritance, as you say she was. If I had to guess, she was probably descended from the Delacroix or Delacour family. They both have many sets of active veela genes, for both males and females."

"So you mean to say that I'm French from both sides of my family? No way, nuh-uh. My mum was Gaelic, through and through. That's what my Aunt Pansy- that was her name, right Hermione? You know, I really don't care- would always boast- that _she_ was no snobby Frenchwoman. Now I think of it, I do suppose she may have known all along my true parentage. She always took such pleasure in pointing out that she was not French, or a freak. When I was younger, I thought the two synonyms."

"Sherlock is related to French people, after all." Hermione spoke up, looking closer at Harry. "I think he even mentioned a second cousin with the last name Delacroix once. Maybe you get it through him."

"That name came into the family through marriage, and she was a step sister to my third cousin, twice removed. I'm not closely related to that lady, who then married a Delacroix. Besides, I think we'd all know if he were even part veela. Mycroft would know, at least. Sherlock wouldn't have been able to keep it quiet. You know they had a sister; she probably would have gotten that inheritance as well."

"Yes, I am aware of that. She was magical, like Sherlock, right?"

"Indeed she was; she died when she was 17, in the last war. I never met her, and she had been on the other side, which we know did not tolerate "half-breeds" like veela. Therefore, she was probably not a veela."

"It's still possible. We don't know for sure what she was like."

"I know I do not wish to meet either of my biological aunts." Harry yawned. "I'm tired. Wake me if you need me, but I'd prefer if you didn't need me." He turned and glided away to their bed, his unruly mop of hair dragging behind him. Despite being the otherworldly beauty he now was, he was also completely exhausted. Hermione's face fell slightly as he walked away without acknowledging her. Hippolyta placed her hand lightly on her shoulder, and steered her toward the table.

"Hermione, I know you're hurting from that conversation; it hurts when someone you love is hurting. But I want you to bear in mind that Harry is also hurting, and he deals with it differently, by shutting himself up to everyone, not even allowing himself in to see his pain. Someday, you will want to try to work with him on not bottling it up. But not today. You need to be feeling better about it, and you'll want to catch him on a good day. Today is not a good day, for him or you."

"I'm surprised he isn't nonverbal again." Apollo spoke, holding Hermione's hand reassuringly. "I know that his biological father had issues getting him to speak when he first moved in with him, in part because he was so often ignored by his aunt and uncle when he was young." Hermione nodded, and then stood up from the table to start frying some pancakes (a recipe she had brought back in time, and taught Hippolyta about; they were Thespis' new favourite food). After breakfast, Hippolyta excused her to go get some sleep as well, bidding her to not wake Harry. Through it all, she stayed silent, contemplating the best way to help Harry with his newest predicament.

* * *

Hermione tried to fall asleep, but could not. She had so many thoughts racing in her head; it was rather difficult to settle them and fall asleep. Looking over at Harry, who, even in sleep, looked troubled, Hermione sighed. She knew a large reason he was prickly was because of his realization that he would be very different when he next saw Sherlock (and John); without a glamour, he'd even be unrecognizable to both of them. He also now had to wear a glamour when out and about, as he didn't quite look human enough to fool those walking along the street. And she recognized that glamours usually itched, because they hid something that Magic had chosen to gift a person with. Cosmetics would not work for him, especially if he got wet, so he would have to learn how to apply a glamour well, possibly even invent one that did not itch so much. He would be housebound until he could come up with something that worked, which meant that he was stuck seeing the same four faces every day. They would even have to tell Helga that she could not come over for a little while, once she got back, as the inheritance was just _too_ unusual for Helga to know about at this point in time. Maybe one day, in about 10 years or so, but not now. She could keep a "small" secret, sure, but something this large would be difficult for her to not accidentally tell someone. There were reasons for her family to keep her out of Divona besides her obvious desire to eat gillyweed. Her parents had no wish to be confronted by Muggles with pitchforks, after all. Some French people were fine with magic, but a larger and larger portion of the population were not, due to the rise of Catholicism.

Hermione wondered if Sherlock would be able to deduce what had happened to Harry, or if they would be able to tell him on their own time. She hoped for the latter, as she had to admit that Harry was right about his inheritance, and there had been little about Salazar Slytherin being an elf,- merely speculation in a book about Parselmouths- yet here he was, an elf and probably something else. Most people thought he was merely descended from elves closely enough that he could speak Parseltongue (i.e. a quarter elf, as his father _was_ documented as being part elf), but few would think that he himself was an elf.

Harry hissed something in his sleep, causing Hermione to jump, shaking the bed just enough to wake him.

"Huh?" Hermione pretended to be asleep, even as Harry rolled himself away from her as far as he could without falling out of the bed. She felt a spell hit her, locking her on her side of the bed, away from him, and mentally sighed. He was already somewhat reluctant to be physically close to someone, a trait he had picked up from his paternal uncle and all the years he lived with his maternal family. It took him a couple years to be willing to stay close to her, and sometimes he'd still stiffen if she snuck up behind him and hugged him without warning. She really shouldn't have expected him to want to be physically close to her when he was this angry at her. Additionally, his hurt and confusion about his heritage made him retreat into himself further, and Hermione found that she could not get to sleep, so tangible was his pain at Sherlock leaving something so very important about his mother out in all his descriptions of her.

As Hermione continued to try to fall asleep, Harry laid in bed, also unable to sleep. He thought mostly about how it always seemed to be him; first, he was the child supposedly orphaned, and then he was the abused child. Even upon finding other family, he had to be the odd one out. Not only was he the youngest living Holmes by 2 decades, but he also _had_ to be the _only_ one to go back in time so far that only the largest deviances from what he knew to be true would change anything in his own time. Mycroft was not magical, Sherlock would not have been able to keep it to himself if he had, and none of his other relatives were close enough to him to cause him to be able to know if they had time travelled. But he supposed not; or at least, not to this extent. He probably would have been told to be careful with time travel, then, or Sherlock would have made several experiments with time, if someone in the family had time travelled. A disproportionately large number of Holmeses were unable to keep their mouths shut about things, so he highly doubted anyone ever actually did.

Which left him where he started- stuck so far from home that, despite the same geography, he might as well be in a different, distinctly foreign, country. In this time, they were closer to the time of Camelot than modernity, and there was nothing they could do about it.

And that wasn't even the furthest extent of his issues. Oh, no, he _had_ to be special, and be something no one had ever heard of, something that even well-read Hermione was unaware of, beyond an academic sense of possibility. He had no idea what was in store for him as a being, because there was a distinct lack of beings that were veela and elves. Usually, the two members of the fae family did not get along well enough to intermarry, and those few that did usually had offspring that displayed only the traits of one side of the family, becoming either all-veela or all-elf at their majority, if they became anything at all. More often than not, they became all-veela, because there needed to be an actual, physical, majority of elf genes for them to become an elf.

Then and there, Harry decided he would never advise people to mix blood adoptions. He had no idea how James had adopted him, but, like the ritual done with Apollo, it seemed it may have made it so that, despite having two fathers and a mother, the mother's genes took up half of his genetic material, and each fathers' took up another "half", in that he had a sort-of trisomy of all his genes, but, because the extras were made completely out of magic, which is what is used in the magical world to identify someone as a person's child, the new ones only _actively_ coded for things. The ritual they had done almost a year before was more physical, but it also did not replace the DNA of anyone for Harry, as he had never been abused by his birth parents or James. So, logically speaking, when there was both a "majority" of elvin genes and Veela genes that coded for a male Veela, they would assert co-dominance, and something like what Harry became would be the result. He wondered if he would have exploded if Elizebeth hadn't appeared to give him Prince (i.e. human) genes.

He would not wish the headache upon any other being, and hoped that his children, if he ever had any, would not inherit both sides, but only one side. So he was safe, for now, at least, because of Hippolyta's insistence that they at least contract a marriage between himself and Hermione.

He wasn't sure if that was even a possibility anymore. He no longer really trusted her, although he acknowledged, in the back of his mind, that it was really just his hurt and confusion making him paranoid. She had never disagreed with one of his deductions before, unless he had missed something in the making of the deduction that she had caught. Yet, there was nothing that she could have caught that Harry missed, because he had been the one to go through it. Elves usually were not allergic to pain potions (as far as he knew), and yet it had caused an almost immediate reaction when she had given him one. Only veela were allergic to any sort of common pain potion, and their reactions were much like his own had been, hours before.

He shuddered, remembering and feeling it in vivid detail in his very bones. The phantom pain from the reaction lingered yet, and he doubted it would go away at any point.

Harry pretended to be fast asleep when Hippolyta and Thespis came in to check on them. He felt the slight strain on his magic lift when they worked together to break the sticking charm on Hermione.

By the time Apollo came in with several books on glamour charms, Harry had actually fallen back asleep, and Hermione seemed to also be asleep. Apollo left the books on the table, and then walked back out.

* * *

No one dared wake either teen for supper or dinner, but they were both woken for breakfast the next day. Harry ate as though he were starving, which would make sense, as he had ignored his dinner the day before his birthday, barely eaten supper, and usually skipped breakfast anyway. He had then proceeded to miss the entire next day's worth of meals, due to being asleep pretty much his entire birthday.

Harry did not appreciate being woken for breakfast. Even less, he appreciated waking to find Hermione snuggled into his side. In his mind, she had betrayed him, and he rather disliked it when people did that. He pulled himself out of her arms, and rolled over, ignoring Apollo's pleas for him to come eat with them.

While Harry simmered, Hermione snuck out of the room and sat down to breakfast. Only after she had quickly eaten and washed up, disappearing out the back door to read outside, did Harry come into the main room. He ate enough for three grown men to be full, and then went back to sleep, as the changes to his body seemed to have drained his magical core for the time being, making him extraordinarily exhausted. He slept through dinner, but was pulled out of bed for supper, where he ate very little. Immediately after, he went into his room and began to work on his glamour.

* * *

Throughout the next week or so, he had to be physically or magically moved to the table, where he would nibble at some food and then, the moment Hippolyta deemed his plate empty enough, he would disappear back into the room he and Hermione shared to research some more on glamour spells that he could use. One of the first days that he was actually awake and researching, Apollo had come in and explained to him about not cutting his hair for a year, as cutting his hair would stunt his magical growth from there on out, leaving him "only" a verified 9 for the time being. Harry's pride (inherited from both Sherlock and Lily, if John was to be believed) got the better of him (as he remembered Hermione's claim that those who were higher numbers during their youth would become higher at their magical majority). He took a break to look up ways to tie back and lighten his hair so that it would not be such a pain to keep it long for the year. The multiple braids he chose to do made a crown around his head, and slightly hid his pointed ears from view, before meeting in one, long, intricate, fish-tail-like braid in the back, where it went down to about his tailbone in a neat braid.

* * *

Ariel helped him through her letters, keeping their correspondence up. Since there were so few that could understand Parseltongue, and even fewer that could understand the language's written form, Harry did write to her about his frustrations with all the changes to his body. He trusted she could keep it to herself, the truth about what he was, and she did, telling her mother a half-truth. She also made sure to look up spells to try to help him, which he appreciated.

His experiences made her a little worried for her own inheritance, but her mother assured her that there would be little that changed for her, as neither Polina nor Loki had had anything major happen.

* * *

Hermione tried to help him, but he seemingly ignored her words, instead reading the books and scrolls they had more intently, as though he wished to drown out her voice with thoughts and turning pages. Despite this, slowly, Hermione gained back his trust, and he began to use first her non-verbal hints, like a book left open to a specific page, or a written page of notes, and then her verbal ones, to work on his spell. He stopped ignoring her around the middle of July, although there were a couple major incidents before he completely made up with her. She helped him with a glamour that would at least not show more than he was willing for Helga to see, which was connected to Ellie's wedding ring, which he would wear around his neck, hidden from view of everyone but himself. It was this discovery that ended the cold-shouldering abruptly a couple weeks before Hermione's birthday, although he was still distant with everyone in the house. This problem solved halfway, Hermione threw herself into her studies on magical creatures, finding that there were really very few other things he could possibly be. His instinctual avoidance of meat showed him to be an elf, but they all avoided making him angry after Hermione actually made him so. He had thrown fireballs at her, proving the other part of his inheritance.

* * *

She had thought the middle of August to be a great time to talk to him about his heritage, to try to help him through it. It ended in a fight between the two of them, where he accused her of not understanding what he was going through, and she accused him of only caring about himself, which was the last straw that caused him to go full-blown veela on her.

His wings were the exact colour as his hair, with small, vibrant, green feathers, the same colour as his eyes, thrown in intermittently. The fire he threw was the same neon blue as Thespis' eyes, burning hot, but, due to Hermione's own heritage, left no mark on her skin. Her clothes were ruined, and even the chastity belt melted. She ran inside, closing and locking the door before he could follow her. He calmed down enough that he was able to reassemble the glamour somewhat upon realizing that he could have severely injured Hermione, or exposed his secret to the world, or both, before entering the house through the back door.

Helga happened to arrive home that day, and she had been excited to see both of them, although, upon seeing how annoyed Leo was, she had instead sat down with him and tried to talk him through it. She did finally succeed in completely calming him, and he apologized for his temper to Hermione. Even with his anger, he still was able to pretend that it was "merely" a pyrotechnic spell that he had used on Hermione, instead of fireballs.

Despite the apology, everyone did their best to not anger him again, something that he noticed and began to grow annoyed about. By her birthday eve, the anger was simmering beneath the surface, but nothing had managed to set him off. All the people in the household hoped something would happen to allow him to bleed it off in a non-destructive way.

* * *

Like she had done with him, Harry stayed up late with Hermione on the night before her birthday. This time, because Harry had gone through such a dramatic change, all the adults stayed up with them to make sure nothing went wrong.

At exactly midnight, Hermione suddenly went silent, and started convulsing. They softened the ground around her, and Harry held her hand through the night. At some point, he fell asleep. The adults, knowing they would probably go the same way soon, and seeing that Hermione's body was done changing, went back to their own beds.

* * *

Harry was the first to awake. He had to blink a couple times when he did so, as Hermione was the most beautiful being he had ever laid eyes on. Her skin was smooth, and her hair had become even more manageable. Her body's shape had changed slightly, making her look less like an adolescent, and more like a young woman. When she opened her eyes, it was to find Harry staring at her, completely unable to voice a single thought coherently.

However, she found herself in the same situation. A large part of her inheritance was mental, and so she was grasping for his shoulders before she even knew what hit her. Her magic lashed out, removing the repaired chastity belt forcefully, and suddenly, he was on her. Their lips met, and they gasped in shock at how good it felt. The previously chaste kiss became less so within moments. Neither noticed the golden glow around them, but Hippolyta, coming around the corner, did. She smiled to herself despite the situation. Her footsteps, which had turned into stomps as she rounded the corner, caused them to break the kiss.

When Hermione opened her eyes from the kiss, Harry noticed for a split second that they appeared to be the same colour as Thespis', before they returned to their normal brown with thin blue and amber rings. Hermione noticed that Harry's eyes seemed different, somehow, although she could not quite place how. By the time Hippolyta came over, however, they had also returned to how they previously looked- vivid, but just barely off the spectrum of seeming completely natural.

This morning, to Hermione, Harry looked _different_. Sure, he had been the most amazing being she had ever seen _before_ her inheritance, but now he seemed to take it to a completely different level. She knew she no longer had a type, but rather a single person that she was attracted to. It wasn't just how he looked or acted, but also his magic (which she could now sense, as she never could before) that drew her toward him. She hoped she would be able to hold out on doing anything more to him until their actual bonding ceremony. According to their marriage contract, that was still a ways away. Hippolyta would be angry if Hermione went further than they already had. Harry was so afraid of taking advantage of Hermione that there was very little chance of him pushing it along to that point on his own, as long as she got control of her magic.

Hippolyta took Hermione's hand- Hermione was still somewhat dazed, and quietly whimpered as she was pulled away- and they went into her room, dressing her quickly. Before Harry had even completely shaken off the stupor from the kiss, Hippolyta had drug Hermione out the door to take a nice, long walk until she had control of her magic again.

Slowly, Harry's hand drifted up to his lips, feeling them. It took Thespis, awakened by the commotion, physically turning his head away from the door for him to stop staring after it longingly, although he continued to throw glances at the door every couple of seconds. He looked like a lost puppy. It took both Thespis and Apollo speaking to him to get him to get dressed, and even then, Apollo had to turn to threats in Parseltongue to get him to pay enough attention that his shoes did not end up on the wrong feet.

When he returned to the table in a daze, Thespis sighed, turned back into the room Harry and Hermione shared, and got together a small bag of necessities. As he wrote a note to Hippolyta, Helga came inside the house, took one look at the dreamy look on Leo's face, and burst into giggles.

"Oh Leo! You're deeply in love, aren't you? And it's with Hermione, isn't it? Isn't that grand that you've realised your love for your soul mate?"

"His what, now, Helga?" Apollo looked rather confused.

"His soul mate. My birth mother would always talk about people whose magic practically sang when they were together, and how those people were always meant to be together, because they were destined by the Fates to be together. Their children would be the strongest, magically, that they would be able to have, and they would live always in harmony with one another. I don't like that last bit; I think a bit of discord is helpful in growing a relationship, as it strengthens it. If a heterosexual couple agrees on everything, then aren't they really just two people that are the same, but different genders? I think some disagreements are important to have, because it's only through hardship that a relationship can grow." By the end of her explanation, Thespis had finished writing the note to Hippolyta. Apollo nodded, and then said, "Well, that may be true, Helga, but right now, Leo really needs to go camping while Hermione gets control of her magic again. You may want to go home, because Hermione will be sure to be in a very foul mood when she and Hippolyta get home; even more so upon finding out that Leo has left without telling her goodbye." Helga nodded.

"I'll stay. Maybe a nice, long, explanation of soul mates would do her good? It'll help her learn how to control her magic-"

"-and her temper. I think you should go home for now, Helga." Leo finally spoke, having finally come out of his daze, somewhat, at least, looking at Helga intently. "I don't think you understand exactly how strong Hermione is. In the state she is currently in, she'd probably see it as you hid me from her, and her magic won't like that. Maybe next week sometime? I'll send you an owl, or something, when it's safe." Helga looked annoyed, but nodded and left.

Apollo grabbed Harry's arm, and grabbed Thespis' shoulder with his other hand. The world became dark, and Harry felt like he couldn't breathe for a moment, and then they were suddenly elsewhere.

Harry couldn't quite pinpoint where "elsewhere" was. It was definitely not Europe, though. The animals all looked a little foreign to him. One, about the size of a large housecat, stalked right past him. Vaguely, he remembered his father's lessons (he had been pulled out of Muggle schooling soon after Sherlock adopted him) about animals in North America. He was relatively sure he was staring at a raccoon and her three kits.

He watched it walk away, not at all scared of the three of them. Apollo glanced at Harry, and then let go of his arm, sure that he was steady on his feet. He then strolled in a circle, setting up several different temporary wards for them to camp under. Thespis set up a large tent, and then a smaller tent; both were taken from Hermione's trunk, and were what John called "TARDIS Tents", as they were much bigger on the inside.

* * *

During the first week, the two men worked on helping Harry with his meditation and Occlumency. Now that he had someone who understood his species a bit more fully than Sherlock, Harry found that he could manage an intricate castle as his mind palace. The winding passages and changing rooms were still disorienting for non-elves (especially since Apollo had explained that Harry now thought in Parseltongue, and therefore the very foundations of his palace were confusing to all non-elves), but Harry could recall information faster than he ever could before. He could hide secrets so deeply inside the castle, no one else could ever find them, create fake memories that were indistinguishable from his actual memories, and could confuse someone trying to enter his mind without ever truly trying. The whole week, Apollo spoke almost exclusively in Parseltongue. As a result, Thespis learned a little bit more about sound inflection and cadence. As a non-elf, he still couldn't speak it, but he could understand enough that he joined in on the conversations rather frequently, speaking instead in Gaelic, his mother tongue.

Harry found it easy to switch back and forth between human languages and Parseltongue, although the one time he was upset while they were camping, he seemingly lost control over his language, speaking in both English and Parseltongue within the same sentence. Additionally, he spoke in both the language of the time and modern English, although both men were able to understand modern English well enough to piece together what he was saying. They all agreed that anger management would be important for Harry to learn before helping found Hogwarts. Apollo made a mental note to look into where Harry could learn such a thing while travelling with him, once his formal apprenticeship with Thespis was over.

* * *

They also worked on trying to figure out other things to do for a glamour. Within five minutes of him applying the one he had been using, he would begin to itch. Within a couple of hours, it would fail spectacularly. All three males believed that Harry would have to keep on finding different glamours to try, and would probably develop a resistance to them over time.

As a week became two, and then three, and then four, still with no word from Hippolyta or Hermione, they all began to grow worried. True, they could all survive out in the wilderness, but surviving and thriving were two very different things, and Harry was beginning to get grumpy about being unable to return home (and wasn't it fantastic that he considered it _home_?).

They used the time to try to figure out a new glamour. Harry relished not having to wear one unless they were testing a new one out, although they soon realised they would need to make one up, because many of the ones they had tried would make him itch within seconds of putting it on, and fail within minutes. They put together all the notes they had on the longest lasting ones, and eventually cobbled something together that took three days to begin to itch (although, like all glamours, it was uncomfortable to begin with), and another week to become unbearably itchy. They only knew that from boredom, as they had cobbled it together the third week, and then tried it for a few days. Harry only held out 10 days with it on, but that was workable, as he would ideally refresh it every morning. This glamour even made him seem like a normal magic user, and would help him blend in better than the ring would. The ring still worked, and the three men thought Harry should probably try to just wear it at home, as he had been doing. After all, they couldn't exactly make Helga forget how much like Apollo Harry had looked the first time she came over. The one attached to the ring made Harry look like a younger version of Apollo, with a couple of the Prince features. His scar hadn't disappeared, although it was much lighter and thinner, and the glamour on the ring covered it up completely. It was plausible that Salazar would have looked the way Harry did with that glamour, but not very likely.

This new glamour, which wasn't cast on anything in particular, made him look exactly like a slightly older version of Salazar, without the obvious elvin features, which made Apollo rather glad, as blending in would become a non-issue.

During the time they were in the New World, Harry kept a journal, in which he both recorded everything he tried as glamours, and his thoughts and ideas. He planned to send it to Ariel when they got back, in case she needed to learn anything about glamours when her inheritance came the next year.

* * *

Finally, they received word from the ladies. Helga was staying at their house (Hippolyta had gone to market and told Hannah it was alright for Helga to come over), as her parents had left to go to Egypt, to try to study the lighthouse and library at Alexandria, and had helped Hermione learn how to control herself around other people a bit better. Hermione had also started to wear a slight glamour, to cover up a little bit of her allure. The final test would be seeing if this new control would work around Harry.

They arrived home that evening, Harry under his new glamour. Hermione seemed glad to see him, although it seemed as though she could see right through both glamours, because she seemed especially worried, and kept throwing glances over her shoulder to Helga. Harry was merely glad that she could concentrate on something that relatively small (after all, he figured the Four Founders would have very few secrets between each other) while also keeping hold of her magic. Although they felt drawn to each other, between Harry's Occlumency and Mind Palace, and Hermione's stubbornness, they did not create a spectacle or distraction of the sort that Hippolyta would disapprove. Helga seemed excited for them to reunite, although she insisted on talking to the three adults, alone, outside. Harry gave her a grateful smile as she walked out the door after the adults.

Within seconds, Hermione had a silencing charm up and was scolding Harry for letting Helga see him without any sort of glamour. When Harry finally got her to calm down, she was still annoyed that she could not see how he looked to the world, but rather how he saw himself.

With that small altercation out of the way (Hermione finally accepting that she was able to see through his glamour rather easily, and working to draw back her magic far enough to see how the world would see him), they moved onto other topics, and talked about how difficult it had been for them to be separated. When Harry casually mentioned that they had gone to North America, Hermione filed that away for later, and asked him what it was like. Upon hearing his explanation of some of the animals, Hermione decided that they would definitely go there for a trip someday, if only to see what Harry's vocal range was with the snakes native to that part of the world. Surely, snakes wouldn't all have the exact same language; it would be nice, she thought, for Harry to try to learn a different dialect of Parseltongue.

When they ran out of topics, they sat there for a moment, steadily getting more lost in each other's eyes. The first barrier to go was Harry's Occlumency, followed quickly by Hermione's hold on her magic, and thus her glamour slipped, distracting Harry further. As the Mind Palace could not actually crumble, it held just enough for Harry to suddenly blink, snapping both teens out of it enough for them to regain a hold on their respective tools. Deciding they had talked long enough, Harry dismantled the wards around them. Mere moments later, Helga led the adults back in.

Together, they all ate, and then went to bed, Leo making sure not to remove the pendant as he changed into his sleep clothes. Helga slept on a small bed, transfigured from one of the dining room chairs, in the same room as the two teens.

* * *

Hippolyta kept checking on the teens during the night. Unlike when they had first arrived in the past, they had taken to sleeping in a pile of limbs. Hippolyta privately thought Hermione might wait until Leo falls "asleep", and then use him as a pillow. He'd then shift into a more comfortable position for both of them, adding a pillow between his chest or stomach and her head and then moving a little bit closer to her body, angling her body so that her legs no longer hang off the side of the bed. Over the course of the night, their arms and legs would move around, sometimes getting twisted in each other's limbs.

Once, she came in to hear them having a conversation with each other in their sleep. That was not the strange part; instead, the strangest thing about the conversation was how Leo was speaking in Parseltongue, and Hermione responding in modern English. As far as Hippolyta knew, Hermione was never able to understand Parseltongue while awake, yet her answers and questions all sounded like a perfectly normal conversation. When Apollo came in silently behind her, having noticed how she paused in the doorway, he confirmed that both halves of the conversation made sense together.

Apollo, like adult elves, slept very little. Most adults would only sleep a couple hours at a time, and only sleep deeply for about a half an hour. Meditation made up another small portion of their time, although, according to Apollo, that was more to keep them from driving themselves mad trying to react to things than getting rest of any sort.

She was glad both teens were already in the habit of meditating for about a half hour a day, as Leo would come to need it rather soon. Elves became "adults" upon their twenty-third birthday, gaining the last substantial core boost (barring rituals and accidental core depletions) and would sleep for a week, and then not at all for the next month. After the month was over, they would go into a more regular sleep pattern. Even though it was a ways off, Hippolyta was a staunch believer in building good habits early.

They slowly would begin to need meditation after their 16th birthday, however, as that was when they would grow into their full adult body, with a fully developed brain. Few elves grew more than an inch after that point, although there was usually an intense growth spurt during the weeks before their birthday. Elves were over 6 feet tall, as a general rule, and Hippolyta would be surprised if Harry was shorter than 6'10" (just barely too large to easily blend into a human crowd, but still short enough that he wouldn't become a curiosity in his own time).

Nothing more of interest happened for the remainder of the week. When Helga went home at the end of Leo's third week home, still nothing had changed.

* * *

Ariel and Leo wrote often, just as they had before Leo's birthday. She reacted well to the gift of the notebook, as Leo had hoped, and considered it a nice present. Her birthday was the same day as Hermione's, in their own time, and, having been in the middle of North America at the time, Harry had been unable to send her anything.

The Gaunts had visited her for her birthday, bringing the entire family with them. Ariel remained polite and reserved the entire time, until Grant Gaunt said something about her being a fabulous specimen to mate. She had quickly excused herself, and Polina had found her daughter crying in the treehouse Loki had built upon finding out that Polina was pregnant with a child. It had become Ariel's favourite place to be alone, and Polina usually respected that, but the presence of the Gaunts meant that she had to force her back into the house. Both women knew that, and so Ariel did not take it really personally that her mother was forcing her back into the company of the Gaunts.

Both Ariel and Harry hoped that Grant Gaunt would not live to see her marriage to Olaf, as he obviously was not a safe choice, as far as father-in-law. She _was_ glad that her mother had not had to marry him. Harry believed it unfair that Ariel had to deal with such a thing instead. Olaf was just as horrible as his father, from what he had read in the letters from Ariel. Out of the bunch, only the second eldest son, Grejori, was actually polite to her the whole time the family visited, even if he was a little pompous in general and rude toward Polina and the rest of the Gaunts.

* * *

The crisp chill of autumn began to permeate the house and surrounding area, and the harvest festival passed without much in the way of interesting things. Likewise, the only change to Harry and Hermione's routine in lessons came whenever Helga stayed with their family when her parents were travelling. Her 9th birthday, on December 13th, was the first birthday her father was not around, although Hannah was present for it. Nik had been delayed by the news of a new magical species in London, whilst he was travelling home from Morocco, where he had been studying the effects some of their "spices" had on magical people in relationship to that of Muggles.

Nik belonged to the select group of people who were trying to study what causes magic, and why it exists, so he was an expert on many esoteric topics of that sort. Any news having to do with advancements in knowledge would make him forget everything around him in favour of studying it. Even his daughter's birthday would not be enough to make him come home, although Hannah worked to make up for it.

Yule passed the week after, and then the New Year. Nothing of interest happened at any of the gatherings, although Gavin Gryffindor joined their grouping soon thereafter, on his 7th birthday, as was custom.

* * *

 **A/N**

 **Please, let me know what you think of all of this! I promise it won't completely become a "creature-fic" (i.e. you probably won't see much in the way of a secret society of veela or anything like that); it mostly was meant as a means to explain how both teens are so strong, magically speaking, and to give Harry a reason to develop a talent toward subterfuge.**

 **As for the clock- Hogwarts has a clock, but clocks of that sort weren't invented in the Muggle world until at least the 13th or 14th century (according to professor Wikipedia), which means it was either a later edition, one of the Founders was actually a time traveller, or magic meant they had been more technologically advanced at one point. Since they have toilets, I went with the last one.**

 **I'm kind of iffy about the whole flashback thing that's in here. I'd like to know anyone's thoughts on that especially. I'm thinking of using that sort of format a few more times to help give an idea of what happened between the Dursleys and the beginning of 3rd year at Hogwarts, although I may also use sort-of throwaway comments from Harry and Hermione as well.**

 **Thank you for reading! Please review on your way out!**


	7. Adventure ot Challenging Children- pt 4

Following the ancient codes of magical teaching, Gavin moved in with Apollo. Apollo had to move back into Slytherin Manor to have room for him, as Gavin's core was not strong enough for him to always have complete control at that point. Additionally, the Ravenclaw home was not built for even three students to learn magic in; when Helga came over, both Leo and Hermione had to review things instead of learning new stuff, so as to avoid accidentally overloading the house's wards. Slytherin Manor could handle it, but the Ravenclaws preferred their own home. Leo visited his father somewhat often, but, for the most part, stayed with the Ravenclaws.

There was a natural vertex of ley lines about a mile away, where Harry and Hermione knew Hogwarts would be built, which would stabilise any wards they came up with. The Ravenclaws had kept that patch of land in reserve for almost 500 years due to the prophecy of the school that would be built upon it, despite it being prime real estate for a magical home. Instead, they built their home on the start of a lesser ley line, where the magic finally came out of the ground enough to power a ward. It afforded a wonderful view of the Black Lake, and the pseudo-mermaids within its depths. Technically, the Slytherins owned the Black Lake, as Slytherin Manor, 2 miles (and a hill) away from the future castle, had rather large grounds, but the Ravenclaws, due to their proximity, used it more often. This casual sharing of land was part of what brought the two Houses into such a close friendship.

* * *

Sometimes, the three students (Leo, Hermione, and Helga) would go out onto the Black Lake to practice, once the ice thawed. Hippolyta would sit next to Thespis in another boat (sometimes joined by Hannah), and they would work on meditating, and then, while keeping their minds completely focussed on what they were trying to do, carefully pulling water out of the lake, or building a raft next to their boat, or any sort of thing involving instinctual magic usage.

Leo was better at it than Hermione, as Hermione started by trying to learn it out of a book. Leo just dove into trying to do it, without any expectations of what is and is not possible. They passed all of the spring, and most of the summer, working at it.

Sometimes, only the women would go out on the water, while Thespis taught Harry more about using a sword. Those practice sessions often ended in Harry being black and blue, although he was steadily becoming better at using the sword. The most difficult part, to Harry, was using such a heavy weapon. He was used to using a fencing foil when sparring with Sherlock. Even a thin sword was heavier than that, if it was sturdy enough to do the type of damage Thespis required Harry be able to do. As a result, Harry spent a large amount of time building up the muscles in his arms, legs, and core.

* * *

Harry's birthday was a break for all of them from school work. Although they usually did not celebrate things like birthdays, all the adults felt the four students had earned a break. Hippolyta made a cake, and the two teens were suddenly responsible for two hyperactive pre-teens. All four had great fun, making that particular birthday much better than the previous one had been.

* * *

Another thing Thespis loved working with Harry on (when Helga was not in earshot) was his balance. Although most elves naturally had better balance than most humans, Harry was less graceful than average. Few elves spent the first 14 years of their lives in a mostly-human body, and therefore learned how to walk and talk in their own body. At the age of 14 or 15, they _would_ undergo a slight growth spurt overnight, but very little would change mentally or physically. They would be clumsy (according to other elves) for a couple days, but soon would adjust. Even with the gift of being a veela added in, Harry was still somewhat ungraceful because his whole centre of balance had shifted. Walking slowly, he could pass for a born elf, but the moment he tried to run, dance, or do something that required most of his attention, he would look like a human pretending to be an elf.

It was amusing to Thespis to watch Harry fall off rickety rafts. Apollo would often test them for Harry, drawing the line between what an elf could and could not do rather easily. Sometimes he would change the density of the raft, distributing it unevenly across the bottom, so that, if Harry stepped on the wrong point, it would begin to sink, to stretch Harry's awareness of the magic around him.

As it also amused Hermione and Helga to watch Leo struggle at it from a distance, Thespis made sure to always have Leo do it when Hermione or Helga was outside. Hippolyta would scold him for doing so, but she secretly enjoyed watching it as well. The explanation for Leo needing to do such a thing was a half-truth: that the elfin side had taken over on his magical majority, drastically altering his skeletal shape, causing him to have to relearn a bunch of things he had previously taken for granted. Helga said that she understood, the one time she asked, in the middle of August, and then turned around in time to watch Leo fall off a raft in the middle of the lake, into the water. It was a somewhat common occurrence in the beginning (they started that particular exercise in June, when it was warm enough that Harry needn't worry about hypothermia), but, as they got closer and closer to September, it had become less common. This was the first time in two days that he had actually fallen in. Thespis claimed he would not let up until Harry managed a week without falling in. It took until the first rain for Harry to be motivated enough to manage it, and then he immediately went a week without falling in, despite the torrential downpour in the middle of September.

* * *

Hermione's birthday passed rather quietly. The two teens and Helga had a quiet celebration with Thespis and Hippolyta, and then Helga spent the night. It was certainly a much quieter affair than most had, and the biggest thing about it was the Trace lifting from her wand (which was stowed in her trunk).

In such a turbulent time, however, Hermione would not be considered an adult until she hit her adulthood magical maturity, at the age of 21. It was customary for a woman to marry soon after that, but Hermione did not see herself as the type to marry quite so young. It was 4 years away, so she figured it would be alright by then, or they could move the ceremony back some, as Harry would not be 21 until that next year. They could marry in the month between their birthdays, both of them as 21-year-olds, the magically strongest age to marry, and it would work out. That it gave Hermione almost 5 years was another bonus, in her mind.

* * *

Both Harry and Hermione would work at their Animagus transformations when Helga wasn't around, starting when the snow melted. Harry especially had to be careful, as his body in his animal form had recently grown to be thicker than the chain his adopted mother's ring hung around his neck from, securing his primary glamour. Even Helga was not supposed to see him without that one, although she was beginning to become more responsible each day, and they knew it was only a matter of time. Often, Harry would go into the forest a ways, to the clearing Aragog and his descendants would one day live, to practice away from prying eyes. It took a while, but he finally was able to change on a whim, even working to change with the chain as a marking on his animal form.

He still was not as large as the basilisk he faced in the Chamber. Both he and Hermione were grateful for that fact. He still had nightmares, and would often awaken after spending large amounts of time in his Animagus form, from severe flashbacks of that night.

* * *

 _He had quickly deduced that Hermione wanted him to know something. If it was a question of everyone's safety or the sanctity of a book, she'd pick everyone's safety 98 times out of 100 (those 2 out of 100 times were reserved for when she was fed up with the world as a whole, or if the book had not been seen since before the library of Alexandria burned). He doubted either of those two things applied, and so had carefully pulled out the page from a book on magical snakes from her hand, wadded up thought it was. Smoothing it out, he found the entry for a basilisk._

 _They had discussed the possibility before. Harry distinctly remembered saying that the only things that added up were the petrifications (something few animals, even magical ones, could cause), the roosters being strangled, and the spiders running, but that left more questions than it answered. For example, people would notice a snake that was large enough to petrify people looking in reflective surfaces. Even the idea of the snake using the pipes seemed unlikely, considering how it must have been there since the time of the Founders. The pipes would have to have an undetectable expansion charm on them for the snake to fit, but those did not allow for life to exist within them, and the charm would fade over time. Next, any location large enough for the snake would_ have _to have been discovered and reported by at least a couple of people, as no wards could be kept up for that long without having a bunch of people in on it to help recharge them. Finally, even if it was slithering in the pipes, people would hear it, because an old basilisk's scales are like plate armour, and therefore quite loud when moving against metal. Yet, I seemed to be the only person who could hear it, which did prove it was a snake, but not much else about it._

 _Written on the paper, however, were two phrases in her cramped writing, in the margins: "spells on the basilisk for the pipes" and "bathroom". Harry remembered grinning, and running to go find a teacher to talk to._

 _Unfortunately, at that exact moment, Professor McGonagall's voice came over the intercom (which he had never known they had, until that very moment), telling all students to go back to their dorms. On the way over to the Ravenclaw Tower, however, he spotted a site he never thought he would see._

 _The redheaded lout, Ronald Weasley, was running after his older brother, Percy. That in and of itself was strange. Stranger yet was the way he was berating him for their sister, Ginny, being MIA. Percy dashed down a staircase right as it began turning, causing Ronald to have to find a different way to the floor was going to. The younger redhead turned around and ran right into Harry, almost knocking him over._

 _"Harry, mate! We haffta find my sister! She's disappeared, an' none of her classmates know where she went. Percy doesn't know, either, and the twins haven't been much help. None of them wanna help me."_

 _Seeing any sort of emotion besides greed in his face caused Harry to agree to help him. Ronald then mentioned that Ginny kept obsessively writing in this diary that he hadn't seen her use until about Christmas break- when the petrifications began- which caused Harry to groan._

 _"I have an idea as to where she is. You aren't going to much like this, but we will need a teacher to go with us to check it out. They probably are meeting in the main staff lounge- if we hurry, we can probably make it there before the meeting breaks." Ronald had nodded, and the two raced off._

 _Just outside the door to the lounge stood Gilderoy Lockhart. He was standing holding his wand in front of him, and turned to the two as they ran up._

 _"Students aren't allowed in the staff lounge. You should be in your dorms. From what I've heard, quite a scandal's occurred. One of the little firsties is missing- Miss Ottery, I believe, her name was; I'll need to check that- and there's a new message from the Heir of Slytherin. You know, I'll escort the two of you back to your dorm. Don't want you going off and trying to save her, after all, like the little Gryffindors you are!"_

 _Harry just barely refrained from bursting out in anger at his words. Ronald looked similarly barely restrained._

 _"Why not you come with us then? Maybe you can get a_ great _deal with your next book, and have it actually be about you, with secondary witnesses and all that rot, and that will cause any possible haters to have to swallow what a great person you actually are!"_

 _"I'm not supposed to move from this post. Professor McGonagall herself told me to stay put, unless I am escorting an unruly student back to their dorm."_

 _"So you claim that you were escorting me back to my dorm in_ Ravenclaw _Tower when I pushed you into the second floor girls' bathroom and half-way kidnapped you to where could very possibly be the Chamber of Secrets_."

 _"Yeah, and I was taken along for the ride, 'cuz Ravenclaw Tower is much closer, and I'm sure one of the prefects would get the message to Gryffindor Tower that I am safely there, so you were taking us both via the safest route." Lockhart groaned, and then agreed._

 _They quickly found the bathroom, and after a couple minutes searching, found the faucet with a snake carved on it. After a couple tries, Harry managed to open it, and they all slid down a giant slide, landing on many skeletons of rodents of unusual size. They passed a snake skin, and Lockhart barely managed to keep from screaming out in terror._

 _"The adventure ends here, lads! That's got to be the largest snake ever! I'm not facing that for just a wee bit more fame!"_

 _"What about my sister's life!"_

 _"Oh, you needn't worry about that, where you'll be going!_ Obe-live-i-ate! _" He swished his wand in a dramatic motion, pointing it first up and then down, before pointing it straight at the two students. They stepped apart and back away from him as the spell shot upward out of his wand. It seemingly kept going before finally hitting the ceiling, where it caused a horrid cracking noise._

 _All three ran for cover- Harry toward the doors at the end of the entry chamber, and the other two back the way they had come- before kneeling down and covering as much of their heads and necks as they could as the rocks fell._

 _No one noticed the silvery-white spell that floated down to rest on Lockhart's head. As rocks fell around them, he fell asleep- or so Ronald claimed. Soon, Harry had no way of getting back through, and Ronald no way of continuing._

 _"I'll look for her! See if there's any way for us to be able to get back through, yeah?"_

It was then that Hermione woke him up for the first time that night.

"Are you alright?"

"I am now. Thanks. I really don't want to remember _that_ night. I'm going to take a short walk, just to the well out back to get some water and clear my head."

"I'll go with you, if you'd like. I've heard that talking about it helps, sometimes."

"Nah... That wasn't even the worst part, yet. I had just been trapped, that's all. Besides, maybe using logic will help me this time. That basilisk isn't going to come hurt me anytime soon, and now I have the skills to deal with something like that, anyway."

"You can't logic away irrational fears, Harry. And I know part of what made that night so terrifying was how horrible Lockhart is, as a person, and finally seeing just how horrid he was." Harry filled a cup, staying silent for a long while as he sipped the water. Finally, as he was finishing up, he spoke.

"I know. Thanks for coming with me. It's nice to have the company." Together, they walked back inside and went to bed. Sleep came easily for both, but, unfortunately for Harry, he was plunged right back into the dream.

 _The doors opened easily at his command. Walking into the Chamber, he found two figures- one sprawled on the floor, one standing- in front of a large stone statue. He easily recognized a young Voldemort from his father's research, and just as easily recognized the fangirl Ginny Weasley by her bright red hair and brown eyes, which, at the moment, gaze sightlessly up toward the ceiling, as though the pain was so great that she was focussing only on not crying out. It was a look he never wanted to see on anyone else's face._

 _"Harry Potter... The Boy-Who-Lived... Come to die..." Tom Riddle's voice was silky, soft, and deadly, echoing as though he was speaking into the Chamber from almost 70 years ago. "I find myself quite fascinated by you, you know."_

 _"Get on with it, Riddle. I haven't all day, and I doubt Miss Weasley does either."_

Suddenly, the dream shifted from what Harry remembered. It had done that a couple times before, but never with this amount of detail.

 _"Oh, the little boy has done some research, I see. Maybe that research told you how you managed to survive the Killing Curse 11 years ago, despite both your mother and father perishing? It certainly won't help you survive the basilisk's stare, however. A pity, that."_

 _"As loathe as I am to tell you, James Potter was_ not _my father. That honour, dubious though it may be, goes to one William Scott Sherlock Holmes. Not that that knowledge will do you any good; after all, you seem to believe Muggles are the scum of the Earth."_

 _"Not Muggles, young man. All Holmeses are either wizards or Squibs, and anyone who tells you otherwise is deluding themselves."_

 _"Ahh, but you missed the fact that he lives in the Muggle world. He lives willingly without magic." Here, Harry crossed his fingers as the lies flowed off his tongue. "He attended Hogwarts, you know. About 50 years after your time, I'd guess. After all, you were Head Boy in your day- back in 1947! He was too intellectual, too prone to fits of anger, and not the pureblood Dumbledore wanted to marry my mother, and so was not Head Boy in 1997. When James Potter lost the badge in 1998, due to too many detentions, however, he was certainly next in line. His magic is spectacularly explosive, mine even more so, and it is just he and I with access to the Holmes family magic, wild as the wind which whips through the wheat fields. My mother is an Evans. I've no idea what, exactly, that means, but I do know this comes from that: §You are not the only Parsssselmouth at Hogwartssss§. Her family is even more ancient than the Holmes family, strong in magic, and local to this land. In times of yore, the Evans and the Slytherins were practically inseparable. Finally, my adopted father adopted me with magic. I am the only heir to the Potter magic._

 _"In case you failed math prior to attending Hogwarts, that gives me three family magics to access, against your_ 1 _family gift, which is a brief flicker in comparison to my sun. I think I know who the basilisk will listen to, don't you?"_

 _"Insolent boy! §Sssspeak to me, Ssslytherin, Greatesssst of the Hogwartssss Four!§" The large statue's mouth began opening, creating a wide hole that could fit a full-grown blue whale sideways. Harry could hear the clattering of the basilisk moving behind the statue. Soon, the snake began slithering out, although Harry carefully kept his eyes shut._

 _"Well, that's impressive."_

 _"Yes, it is,_ Potter _. And it is going to kill you before eating you. §Kill him! He musssst die! The heir of Ssssalazar has decreed it sssso!§ I shall see you die, Potter, and then, I shall ensure world dominion!"_

 _"How will you get out? The Chamber is caved in, you know." Harry was relying only on reflexes to dodge the snake, which had started hissing gibberish, as he tried to rile Riddle into giving up more of his secret._

 _"I will find a way. §Now shut up and eat the boy.§_

 _§Or maybe don't eat thisss boy. After all, I've hardly any meat on my bonessss, and you must be hungry after ssssuch a long time hibernating.§_

 _§I ssshan't eat thisss boy. He sssmellsss more like my firssst massster, Ssssally.§_

 _§You mussst be missstaken. After all, it'sss been almossst 1,000 yearsss. He hasss nothing to offer you. I've no body for you to consssume, anyhow, and neither of usss are willing for you to eat that girl.§_

 _The snake suddenly lunged toward Harry, who froze for a moment before dashing away. It seemed confused as he kept running, listening carefully to the sounds his footsteps made to track where in the Chamber he was._

 _All of them stopped for a moment when a burst of song came forth into the Chamber. A phoenix alighted on Harry's shoulder, dropping something cloth in front of him, causing him to almost trip. The basilisk came to a confused stop._

 _As Harry lifted it up, he heard Tom's cackle._

 _"A songbird and a hat! That is what Hogwarts sends her great defender!"_

 _Indeed, he did have the Sorting Hat, but he could feel something metal inside of it. As he reached his hand in, he felt something similar to the hilt of a fencing foil, but much heavier. As he pulled it out of the Hat, he felt it getting lighter, but, squinting his eyes open, he found that it was just some sort of spell to make it feel lighter, without actually being so._

 _§Pleassse, Massster, forgive me. Take me out of my misssery, quickly. My eyesss are ssshut, but I do not know how long I can hold againssst your falssse heir, so end it quickly, I pray of you.§ Harry paused a moment, and then looked up at the basilisk. For some strange reason, he felt_ bad _about having to kill her. Taking a deep breath, he walked toward her, opening his eyes as he did so._

 _§I releassse you from your dutiesss, sssso that you may find eternal ssslumber. Sssleep well, old friend.§ Harry had no idea where the words were coming from, but felt the truth of them with every fibre of his being. As he pushed the sword through the roof of the basilisk's mouth, he felt something poking his arm. He ignored it in favour of a humane ending to the basilisk's life, continuing to put pressure on the blade as he pushed up._

 _"You won this round, but I now can hold a wand, Potter."_

 _"The name is Holmes, Thomas. And wow. My cousin can_ hold _a wand, but that doesn't mean he can_ use _it._ "

 _"Potter or Holmes, I doubt a scrawny 12-year-old can defeat a well-learned 16-year-old who has spent the last 6 years learning about magic. I am more powerful than you ever could be, for the blood of the great Salazar Slytherin runs through my veins."_

 _"He can if he is a Holmes. I don't know about a Potter, though." Harry chose not to mention that he had also been learning about magic for the last 6 years. It was uncouth to be cocky, after all. "As for power, did the blood of Salazar Slytherin not run through your mother's veins? And yet, she died from birthing you. And your father was a flat-out muggle. My mother was a Squib-born witch, and my father is a pureblood, which is quite a bit more than we can say for you."_

 _The spirit-given-flesh lunged toward him, hissing meaningless gibberish at him. He looked incensed at the taunts, and Harry briefly wondered why he had thought it was a good idea to taunt the shadow of a very powerful Dark wizard._

 _Before Riddle could do anything, though, Harry's vision began to dim._

 _"Hah! Defeated by a basilisk! The great Harry Potter couldn't even kill a basilisk that was laying there, asking to be killed, without killing himself! Even the songbird knows he's dying!"_

 _Indeed, the phoenix had landed on Harry's arm, and was crying into the wound created by the basilisk. The room began to come back into focus, and Harry was able to stand up (he was unsure of when he had fallen, but certainly had quite a knot on the back of his head) in time to see Riddle's face whiten in rage._

 _"Of course! A phoenix's tears have healing powers... I forgot... In any case, you will merely meet your end here, then, young Holmes._ Avadra Kedavra! _" A green bolt shot toward Harry, but, for some reason- maybe because of the phoenix's soothing presence- he did not move as the bolt shot toward him._

 _It splashed against him, making his entire body as green as his eyes for a short moment, before rebounding through the figure to the diary that was laying on the ground next to the pale, still form of Ginny Weasley._

 _The diary spontaneously combusted, and with it, Riddle._

 _Harry sat down, ignoring the water seeping through his robes, just taking a moment to visually take in the Chamber. The writing at the base of the statue looked like gibberish to him, even though he felt like he should know how to read it. The snake's carcass lay in another puddle, of blood and water. The sword lay forgotten until now in a puddle a few feet away, the rubies in the hilt glinting in the dull light of the Chamber. Ginny lay next to the ashy remains of the diary, still unconscious, but with better colour. From his place, he could see the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, merely asleep after such a difficult day._

 _Harry allowed himself a moment to groan internally. Of course, her hero worship will get worse, now that he went down into the Chamber to save her, alone, facing an angry, substantial wraith, and a basilisk. Fie those books published while he was still in nappies, about how great he was in facing various evils alone, making him out to be a willing hero._

 _He only did it because he felt compelled to do so. Maybe he could levitate her through to Ron, and tell him to pretend like he had a larger part in this?_

 _No, now his indecision has cost him. She stirred, and then sat up, looking around, panicked._

 _"I didn't mean to! Oh God! Mum is going to hate me! Daddy won't love me anymore!"_

 _"Or they, as rational adults, will see that you were possessed, and forced to do all those things. I sincerely hope they get you some counseling, as well." Harry was shocked at how assured his voice was, and how deep. It echoed against the walls of the Chamber. Ginny looked around wildly, her eyes passing over Harry's figure many times, so many that Harry figured that he was invisible to her. Taking the moment for what it was, he walked as quietly as he could over to the hole in the statue, crawling into it. As he did so, he called out to Ginny again. "Take a few moments, and try to relax. No-one and nothing are going to harm you, as long as you stay away from the basilisk. I can guide you out of here, I just need a couple moments, youngling."_

 _The moment he passed through the hole in the mouth, Harry felt a strange tingling. His shoes suddenly felt way too tight, so he stooped to remove them. As he stood up, he hit his head on the side of the hole, which, moments before, had been about a foot and a half above his head. Muffling a cuss word- he definitely did not want anyone to see him like this, until he had figured out what exactly had happened- he walked through the mouth, down the esophagus, and into the secret chamber that housed the basilisk. There was a door off to one side, which he cautiously opened._

 _Inside was a large room. Two walls- the one with the door, and one right next to it- were covered by bookshelves, all practically sagging under the weight of the books. Another was a curtained window, looking out into the cave the first years came through on boats. The final wall held a pair of doors and a wardrobe. Going through one of the doors, Harry found himself in a spotless bathroom, decorated with gold filigree over the green paint. There was a toilet, large bathtub (not to the scale of the prefect's bath, but still large enough to comfortably fit two fully-grown people), sink, and shower stall. The air practically hummed with magic. Above the sink, there was a mirror._

 _Harry could only stare incredulously at the mirror. He had seemingly gained much in height and muscle. His hair was long, and everything was too focussed. Taking off his glasses, to wipe them, he froze, for suddenly everything came into perfect focus._

 _He still looked like a teenager, or maybe like he was in his early 20s. He pulled a strand of hair behind his ear, frowning as his finger encountered an odd point. Leaning closer, he realized that it was his ear with the point._

The dream faded as Hermione shook him awake. Already, the previous events were growing dimmer in his mind, and he was left wondering how they had managed to get out of the Chamber, how he had hidden the change from what he now realized to be his future self, back into Harry, and how he had forgotten all of this so very adamantly.

After breakfast, Harry had raced over to see Apollo. His father was just as excited as he was, although he did chastise Harry for speaking in Parseltongue to tell him something that could have waited the few minutes it would take to maintain decorum.

Apollo dismissed Gavin for the morning, telling him to go find a book to read while he helped Harry through an issue that had come up. The young apprentice ran to the library, while Harry followed Apollo to his private study, where he kept his Pensieve under lock and key.

After viewing the memory, Apollo asked if there was anything more from the dream. Harry sighed before telling him that Hermione had woken him before his dream self- his 12-year-old self, that is- had gotten over the fact that his ears were pointed. As there was little to discuss until they knew more- after all, it barely changed what Harry knew to be true about Salazar Slytherin- Apollo suggested talking to Thespis, to try to get a bit more emotional support, if that is what he felt he needed, if Apollo wasn't present.

Apollo helped Harry package up the Pensieve, so that he could show the memory to Thespis, Hippolyta, and Hermione. They also found the copy of his memory from when he first came back in time, to compare it to. As the Pensieve was heavy and a costly magical artifact, Apollo made a portkey for Harry to use to go back across the lake.

Not five minutes later, Thespis was helping him set it up. While Harry stood to make sure Helga didn't come in and disrupt them (or find out something she shouldn't know), all three of the other occupants watched the memory. None of them picked up on anything that Harry or Apollo hadn't, so they let the matter rest for the time being. Hermione did stick to Harry like a burr, however, having seen what had really happened in the Chamber.

Thespis and Harry watched the false memory, Thespis coming out of the Pensieve looking pensive. Hermione had hung around

"It's now entirely in Parseltongue. I'm not sure if it always has been, or if many of Harry's memories are like that, but that would be something to ask Apollo." Hermione looked concerned for a moment, and then turned to Harry.

 _§He may have not noticed§_ \- Hermione glared at him. "Oops, sorry... He may not have noticed; we had been through a bunch of memories that day, and was probably quite tired, emotionally, by then. I didn't notice anything was off until Thespis said something. I know that I sometimes don't notice when my emotions are high, I am hungry, or I am tired. It does tell us that it was a very short list of possible suspects as to who caused me to forget all of it. I'd think it was probably something having to do with the Chamber, though. I guess that means we will need to build a Chamber, and I will have to hatch a basilisk at some point in the next 20 years." They abruptly stopped talking as Helga came into view from the woods. Hermione mock glared at her for taking the shortcut.

"Hi Leo, Hermione! What are you doing?"

"We're just helping Leo through another nightmare."

"Oh. I was hoping he'd be doing another balancing act!"

"The water is almost freezing! I'm not going out there alone!"

"Besides, the rafts have all lost their magic. It's been about a month since he did that, Helga. Why are you hoping today to see him do that?"

"I just felt like it was the thing for him to do today. Maybe not on the lake, since it is so cold, but maybe a tightrope... hmmm... Between here and there!" She pointed from the chimney to a tree, a short ways into the forest. Thespis laughed, and waved his hand, causing a rope to materialize. After a bit of good-natured grumbling, Leo climbed the tree. As he got onto the tightrope, he took a deep breath and then began walking across it.

It was a windy day, and a conjured tightrope is apparently very slippery, yet Leo managed to get all the way across without any errors. Helga watched him get over to the roof, and then demanded that he run across it this next time.

Leo did, again not falling. They continued on in this vein, Helga asking something more impossible of Leo each time, until he finally told her that he was exhausted. She stood up, brushed off her skirt, and replied.

"Good. Now you'll sleep well tonight. See you tomorrow at market!" And away she went, back into the woods.

True to her prediction, Harry slept well that night, and for many nights thereafter. Soon, the disturbance of realizing someone had changed his memory dissipated, and the month of nightmares left behind.

* * *

As the nights got longer, Harry saw less and less of his adopted father. Soon, it got to the point that he was hearing news of Gavin's training from letters from Ariel before Apollo got a chance to tell him. She lent a sympathetic ear to Harry's plight, and began working on a way for them to communicate instantaneously, as that was not expressly forbidden by her contract- just physical contact was- which led to a steady decrease in responses from her. About the time the lake froze, she sent a letter saying that she didn't really expect any responses from him for a while yet, and would let him know when she was finished with the communication devices via a letter, as she would cease being any sort of substantial pen pal until they were completed.

The next letter was from Polina, thanking Harry for helping her snap Ariel out of the rut she had been in, and letting him know that Ariel did not mean anything unkind by her previous letter. She also offered to be Harry's pen pal for the interim, but recognized that she was not always great at responding to letters, meaning their correspondence might well peter out. He accepted that, and dove further into his studies, sometimes writing a quick note in a notebook he planned to send to Ariel once she finished her project.

* * *

They ice skated on the lake, once it froze. There were areas the Slytherins traditionally set up to allow for aeration of the water under the ice that they were not allowed near, but most of the lake was open to them. In the beginning, Leo would stumble often, but, as time went on, he became more and more graceful. Hermione was graceful from the beginning. Helga was about as poised as a 9-year-old girl who had never skated before had any right to be, which is to say, not very graceful. Thespis would join them sometimes, although Harry dreaded him doing so, as that meant he had to practice fencing in addition to skating. Apollo and Gavin would sometimes skate across for dinner, or to join them in their activities, although Gavin frequently would clutch tightly to Apollo's hand, as he fell more often than not. The Gryffindor family water source was a river that ran too quickly to freeze safely, so he had never ice-skated before that winter.

* * *

Market days continued to be a treat. Usually, Helga would come stay with them the night after market, as the Hufflepuffs lived so far away. Apollo would host Hannah and, when he finally returned, Nik, in Slytherin Manor, which, although substantially further away, was much more comfortable than cramming many people into the small home owned by the Ravenclaws. The Hufflepuffs were always excited to pretend to be some visiting dignitary or other, so that Gavin could practice hosting people with Apollo's help.

Likewise, they would sometimes all stay overnight at the Hufflepuff Home so that Helga could practice the same thing. On nights the Hufflepuffs, and Apollo and Gavin, were not around, Harry and Hermione would do the same in the Ravenclaw Residence. All four young people became wonderful hosts over the course of that cold winter. The snowfall was the deepest on record, although it mostly happened over the course of a single week, and then broke the record again, later that winter, over the course of another week. For that first week, they were snowed in at Slytherin Manor, as Apollo had insisted on a nice dinner for all of them in honor of Helga's 10th birthday (2 days hence).

While they ate their meal, the light snowfall turned to whiteout conditions, trapping them inside. During that time, Rowena mentioned ballet, which prompted Hippolyta to clean the ballroom for Rowena to begin to teach it to the other young people, as she thought the exercise would do them all some good.

Leo groaned about it, but reluctantly agreed to go along with Rowena's plan. Upon seeing how limber, yet strong, Leo was, Thespis insisted upon adding ballet to Leo's studies for the foreseeable future. He looked awkward and unsure, despite being so flexible, but upon seeing how graceful Rowena looked, Thespis thought it a strong choice of activity for him.

Hermione had started ballet at her mother's insistence when she was rather young, and continued even as her primary custody shifted to her father. She thoroughly enjoyed it, and it was as much a pleasure and an escape for her as playing the violin was for Sherlock. They had all just been so busy, with one thing happening after another, that she had not really thought about picking it back up until that week.

Hippolyta disliked ballet the moment she saw the type of clothing people would wear to practice. Since the day Rowena had opened her trunk, Hippolyta had loathed modern undergarments. As ballet either was done wearing modern undergarments or no undergarments (as a loincloth would be difficult to dance in, and a corset of the time would restrict the passage of air to the lungs or slide too much), she therefore ostracized it on principle. The shorter or lighter skirts to allow for movement caused her to hate it even more. Finally, the most bothersome point, for her, was the way Hermione danced without even showing embarrassment for some of the motions Hippolyta would deem inappropriate.

Of course, all of this was expressed privately to Thespis, after Gavin had gone to bed that night. Leo, Hermione, and Helga were all talking quietly in the next room over when Hippolyta stormed in and told Hermione that she was taking her pointe shoes, and she could have them back when she married.

Hermione agreed to it, and gave her the shoes off her bed. Hippolyta did not even notice the other pair, partially hidden by a leotard, in her trunk. Hermione planned to practice it in secret from then on, a plan quietly endorsed by Thespis. He did not see the point in keeping her from one of her passions, especially since it helped her clear her mind. That Harry would have a dance partner was merely a bonus.

* * *

Helga's birthday the next day was a fun affair. Although they could not leave the building, the teens worked to make an unused room into a freezer, and then made it snow lightly. By the time Helga awoke, they had a completely safe winter wonderland for her and Gavin to play in. They had many snowball fights, interrupted only by a letter arriving via phoenix for Helga, from Godric.

Like Salazar and Ariel, they had been corresponding rather frequently, and were great friends. As there were no protections around the information they transmitted to each other, they did not bare as much of their souls to each other as Salazar and Ariel did, meaning their bond was not quite as strong, but they still were great friends.

In this letter, Godric wished Helga a happy birthday, inquired after his younger brother, and sent his greetings to everyone else in Hogsmeade. His phoenix, Fawkes, joined Helga and Rowena in defending against Salazar and Gavin's snowball attacks, and then followed her to her room when she was done, to allow her time to write a reply to Godric.

While they all changed, Hippolyta vanished the remaining snow in the room before joining Hannah in supper preparations. They all had a hearty meal, and then went to bed.

* * *

The rest of the week was rather stifling for the teens, as they could not really do much. They kept up the public persona all the time around Gavin, as Gavin was not able to keep a secret if his life depended upon it. It was a good thing that Godric introduced himself as Godric (claiming his birth name was too boring) originally. If he had not, the whole village would probably call him by whatever his birth name was, which could actually change the course of history.

(After all, there was some confusion in the naming of a new Chief Warlock because of second cousins both named Godric Grant in the late 13th century. It led to a miniature civil war within Great Britain, ending only when one paid an assassin named Salazar to off the other. With a more common name, like Philip, or Joseph, or Harry, there would have been more differentiation; with the name Godric, few people thought it would be an issue, and so they did not distinguish between the two. Even with one of the Founders being called Godric, it still was a relatively uncommon name, reserved solely for the male babies that really struggled to be able to live. No one thought there would ever be two people of the same generation in the same country with the same surname (within the same family) with the name Godric, and usually that would not happen. But a letter, bearing the news of one son's birth, did not arrive before the birth of another's son's birth, due to being unfortunately mislaid.

The first son was a slightly early breech birth; the second took several minutes to start breathing due to the umbilical cord being wrapped around his neck at birth. Both earned the name Godric, and, in the assumed absence of a son named Godric within the generation, it was given to both. Both fathers had the common name of John, and that was the middle name for both boys, so even middle names would not have helped.)

Apollo made sure Gavin never learned Salazar's real name, the name Helga and her parents knew him under, nor Rowena's real name. Helga had no trouble keeping the secret, and even called Leo by Salazar when the three were alone, as Helga's bedtime was an hour later than Gavin's. Harry and Hermione continued that, calling each other Salazar and Rowena, even after most everyone else had gone to bed.

Apollo had set the two of them to organizing the library in the Dewey Decimal system. He was often their late-night chaperone, needing little sleep himself. Often, Rowena would fall asleep in the library as Salazar continued to organize the library until 2 or 3 in the morning, at which point Apollo would send them both to bed. Both would be so tired that they usually wouldn't speak to each other on the way there.

The snow stopped falling the 8th day they were there, but was so high it blocked the front doors. None of them could tunnel through, and, not knowing what it looked like at the Ravenclaw home, they were leery of using other modes of transportation to get there, in case they ended up somewhere dangerous.

On the 12th day, Salazar and Rowena finally finished re-organizing the library. Using levitation spells, they began to play in the melting snow. Apollo did not notice until a snowball happened to hit him in the back of the head, at which point he insisted he, Gawain, Thespis, and the Hufflepuffs all be allowed to join. Hippolyta refused to join them, claiming they would catch their deaths playing in the cold. Helga and Rowena enjoyed pelting Salazar with snowballs, even teaming up for a long while as Salazar conjured wall after wall of snow.

At supper time, they all returned to the castle, and ate the warm meal Hippolyta had made in their absence. They all collapsed into bed, exhausted.

* * *

 **A/N: Thanks for reading this! Almost 8,000 words, this time!**

 **Let me know if there are other characters you want to hear more from, or if there are any plot holes that I have missed (there were several things that just begged to be added, like the whole Chamber flashback, which made the word count jump from about 3,500 to the almost 8,000 it is now within a couple hours)! In general, just let me know if there's anything you want to say about this!**

 **Special shoutout to Catz4444, who has reviewed every chapter of this story! Thank you so much!**


	8. Adventure ot Challenging Children- pt 5

The next day, the sun was shinning, and the snow had melted enough that they could make out the top of the Ravenclaw home, which looked structurally intact when Hippolyta peered at it through a telescope. Of course, a building can _look_ sound without actually being so, so Apollo and Thespis apparated over, and investigated the structural integrity of the building. As it was not completely safe, they moved everything out of the building and sat down at a table in Apollo's home to begin planning the castle that would be their home, and eventually, a school. When the snow completely melted, they would begin to deconstruct the house, but, for now, they could live with Apollo.

Salazar and Rowena joined them as soon as they woke up and had eaten some food. All four agreed that they would try to make it as close to the Hogwarts of the future, with bathrooms and a "secret" chamber (although Salazar refused to install the basilisk he would one day kill. He knew he would probably change his mind, remembering the Chamber as he did, but, for the time being, he remained firm), as they could.

* * *

Each tower was slightly different. One was pretty much a winding staircase up to a large room, which then had a back staircase to the top of the tower, which would become the astronomy classroom. Another would exist solely to give a view of the roofs (and easy access to said roofs), with windows all around it, barely taller than the normal roof. Yet another, existing seemingly as a separate building, connected to the back of the dungeons. It was the tallest of the towers, holding the clock tower and all the archives for the future library. The dungeons would be properly ventilated, as Potions would happen in those classrooms eventually, even if they originally were in their own tower. Rowena knew that tower would be destroyed in the next magical war, and so planned for a contingency. It would be a magnificent tower, though, for the time it would stand. It stood slightly separate, from the rest of the school, connected by a single hallway of stone, upon a hill that did not exist during the modern time (probably, Rowena speculated, destroyed at the same time as the tower itself). For ease of collecting Potions ingredients, it was one of the closest buildings to the forest, and one could even argue that the forest protected the back entrance, as there was only a thin strip of grass between the forest and the tower. Among the other towers were several offices and housing for the staff.

The Great Hall was created to look like the Great Hall in the papal palace of Avignon, which Rowena had visited between her first and second years of primary school. The painted stars would be replaced with enchanted ones, and the kitchens would be moved underneath the hall, as house elves would make it easier for the food to travel to the people in the Hall.

Gryffindor Tower, so named due to the generosity offered by the Gryffindor family in financing that portion of the building, was an area for Gavin to design. Helga was allowed to work on another common area, closer to the kitchens, called Hufflepuff Hideaway, due to Nik's patronage to the arts and study of magic. Both Apollo and Nik used those opportunities as a part of their respective teaching in estate management. Each student was given a budget, and a rough estimate of the amount of space they would receive. Salazar and Rowena were also each given an area to work on, although they collaborated with each other to try to make the two areas rather similar, as they had similar tastes, and figured that a large portion of the population would agree with what they hoped would be peaceful and relaxing areas.

While Salazar was given a large portion of the dungeons, which would stretch beneath the lake, Rowena was given one of the other towers. The areas were yet unnamed, and neither teen mentioned what they knew the adults probably already realized- that these areas would be home to Slytherin and Ravenclaw students in the years to come.

First, they agreed on making the main areas appear to have no roof. The lake was clear enough to let some natural light through, and adding some small lights, hidden where few would notice them, made it the slightest bit easier to see in the common room. Rowena would have no problem enchanting the ceiling of the tower after she figured out how to do it in the Great Hall. There would be inset lights in the walls to allow for soft ambient lighting, so that students could stay up late, studying, if they desired.

The teens used the large amount of space they had in the dungeons to create a beautiful common room, with enough space to hold a formal dance, or house multiple large groups of people if there were to be a threat that would necessitate people staying below ground for a long time. The couches were somewhat comfortable, but also would look fashionable for the next millennium or so, with elegant wood carvings on the arms and legs, and deep green cushions. All accents would be silver. There was a Grand Staircase into the common room from both sides, which then made it easier for the ceiling to seem rather high.

One of the Grand Staircases led to a large pair of double doors, which covered the reception chamber hidden behind the portrait hole. Inside the small chamber was also a fireplace, which Salazar planned to one day hook up to the Floo network (once it became a "thing"). There was a large wardrobe, for placing outer cloaks, with allotted slots for each student's things. The outside of the portrait hole was level with the rest of the dungeons. The staircase into the Common Room was a good 18 yards tall, although there would be an automated escalator-like machine to assist students in getting to the common room from day to day. The doors added another three yards height to the room.

The other Grand Staircase went up only half as high as the front one before splitting into two staircases, which each had three landings, which emptied onto balconies with doors leading to the dorms, with the males on one side and the females on the other. Each dorm would house up to four students easily (but could stretch to hold 6), with 14 dorms of each gender on each level (a total of 28 dorms on each level, or 84 dorms total), with adjoining bathrooms shared between two dorms. Salazar planned to split the students up alphabetically by first name and age, somewhat, with the first and second years on the lowest balcony, the third years split between the lowest and middle balconies, the fourth and fifth years solely on the middle balcony, and those sixth year and above on the top balcony. At the far ends of the top balcony were small staircases on each side, which led to a stand-alone room that functioned as the Head Boy and Head Girl rooms, or would be reserved for the leading academics of the seventh year in Slytherin House. These small balconies each had their own staircase to the main entrance to the Common Room.

Rowena thought it a ridiculous idea to have the years mix in such a way, but still leave a way for the top students to remain aloof, but agreed that large numbers of dorms was probably the way to go, instead of housing large numbers of students in relatively few dorms.

Salazar thought Rowena was one to talk, as she had spent ages trying to figure out how to design the very dorms they had both already lived in for a little over two years. The modern setup was adequate for a Ravenclaw to excel, but Rowena wished to tamper with it to make it perfect. She finally agreed that there was little more she could do to improve it.

After all, the entire staircase up to the dorms was lined with books on all sorts of subjects, with the most common remaining where the first years could easily find them. In the midst of the bookshelving were archways, also lined with books, which led to smaller staircases to the dormitories for each year, and then split for each gender. When the staircases split, the books would become more about personal health and hygiene, and other somewhat embarrassing or private topics. Each dorm consisted of a hallway with six doors. Each door led to a room for four students (but could, again, stretch to hold up to 6 students), complete with a semi-private bathroom. The top male and female seventh year students in Ravenclaw had a private dorm clustered amongst their peers' dorms. All of this would be made possible by space expansion runes, carved into each stone, and looking, to untrained eyes, like random, swirly, patterns engraved in the walls. They would need to be set deeply into the stone, so that they would survive until the two returned to modern times, graduated, and then come back to restore the Ravenclaw tower. Hermione spent several weeks of trial and error prior to giving in and having Harry show her his memories (out of the two, Harry was more likely to remember those tiny details) of the Ravenclaw commons to get at least a partial hint. They were both shocked to realize that the runes were an esoteric mixture of various types of runes, including some in Parseltongue, meaning Harry or Apollo would need to participate heavily in the creation of Ravenclaw Tower.

The Common Room would also be covered in bookshelves, with large ladders that were spelled so no one would fall off them. The ladders would be attached to the walls, and also would make sure students were not able to reach a book they were not mature enough for. The only parts not covered by bookshelves would be the portrait hole, the fireplace, a few windows, and a couple of portraits. The middle of the room would be covered with a plush rug and sturdy chairs and tables. More tall bookshelves acted as dividers for small study areas, although those shelves were spelled to be easily moved around, for if there needed to be a House meeting, or there was a large study group meeting.

Gawain decided to copy his own room at the Slytherin estate, making everything red and gold silks, velvets, and damasks. The dorms would separate in the Common Room, and each dorm room would house all the students of that gender and year. The top seventh year students had a shared dorm with a doorway at the base of the two sets of stairs. The Common Room would be cozy, with squishy armchairs, blankets, and end tables with covered edges. The fireplace would be second in size only to the one in the Great Hall's receiving chamber.

Helga created a more individual room system, with long hallways (again, made possible by space-expansion runes) leading in opposite directions, with each student sharing with one other student of the same age and gender, and sharing a bathroom with another dorm of the same gender. Dorms would be reassigned every year. First years would share bathrooms with seventh years, second years with sixth years, third years with fifth years, and fourth years with each other. The room spacing was malleable, so that all older students would have at least one dorm to mentor (even if it was merely co-mentoring), and all younger students would have at least one dorm to mentor them. The top seventh year students would remain mixed in with their peers.

The Common Room would have its own kitchen, with a countertop greenhouse for fresh food, and be an odd mixture of furniture, left up to the students to decide what they would like in their Common Room, so that it would feel welcoming to all the students. There would be a modest fireplace, enchanted to emit heat at the correct temperature for everyone to feel as comfortable as possible.

The work the four put into designing the new castle took the better part of a year to do (of course, Rowena and Salazar had all the runes planned out, brick by brick in that time; the only enchantments that eluded them were the ones for the ceilings). By the time they had finished, reviewing their lessons on the side, whenever there was time, the next winter was almost upon them. That was not to say that they did not do much during that year- indeed, they went on many outings to local areas, although never for more than a week, and never with just one student in any single place. During that time, they all (except the Hufflepuffs) lived with Apollo, as he had upgraded his wards so they would not strain them while living there.

* * *

With the Ravenclaws out of a home, he felt it was the least he could do for the people who were willing to take on his son as a surrogate son of their own, not once, nor twice, but rather, three times. The Ravenclaws were like family to him, and had helped him through much trouble in his life. They were the people who saw him at his worst. It was because of them that he overcame most of his guilt surrounding the death of Loki (whom they had helped raise when Ellie got a horrible case of dragon pox) and moved back in with Ellie. They were the ones who kept him alive after the death of Ellie by reminding him to eat, and Thespis had to physically restrain him after Salazar's death, while Hippolyta calmed him down and began to lead him toward healing. Finally, they agreed to take in his newest son as Thespis' apprentice, so as to not reveal to everyone else that this Salazar was different from the way he used to be.

It was the least he could do to offer them lodging and basic necessities during the time it would take to build the castle.

Harry's birthday passed without much fanfare. He and Hermione had a small celebration of his majority in the modern wizarding world at midnight, and that was it. They both knew that there wouldn't be much of consequence happening until he was about to turn 20, when the next step of bridal negotiations would take place.

Hermione's birthday was likewise quiet.

* * *

Harry did not hear much from Ariel; there were a few requests for books out of Slytherin Manor, but that was about it. He didn't expect her to finish her project in such a relatively short time, of course, and tried to be supportive, but he began to tire of having such a small group of people that he knew well. Hermione figured that he was homesick. Harry honestly did not know what it was. He did keep having dreams about small moments at 221B. One particular one kept recurring.

* * *

 _He was maybe 7, so it was before he met Hermione, or even John. Mycroft had been diligent in making sure his brother actually_ taught _his nephew correctly, with all the things the Education Board deemed important for a 11-year-old to know (after all, he was a Holmes, and therefore needed to be smarter than his peers). Harry knew his age in the dream only because of the paper on the wall, with all the important dates for the year (he was scheduled to take a standardized test meant for 11-and-12-year-olds in June, and he worked through that curriculum as a 7-year-old, so he must be 7), which his uncle had made for him, so that he could remind his father about them if he forgot. Also on the paper were dates for things like "Grandmummy's birthday" (August 5; party will be on 8/7, at noon), "Dudley's last day of school" (June 19th; Sherlock needs to pick him up by 1:30), "James and Lily's anniversary" (September 21st), "Scotland Yard's Holiday Gala- don't let Sherlock skip this!" (December 31st, 4 PM), and, the one Harry was most excited for at the time, "Diagon Alley" (September 1st, after 12 PM)._

 _Most people flocked to Platform 9 3/4 on that day. After dropping students at the train, most parents and alumni (so most of Wizarding Britain) would then attend the yearly Hogwarts Auction, which functioned to raise funds for the students, especially those using the Hogwarts Orphan fund. Harry always got to go to Diagon on the 1st, because no reporters were there, all of them attending the auction, and few other people were present in Diagon. Sherlock always would disguise him, as well. It was a Holmes family secret that Mycroft also attended, and they would have tea in a discrete Muggle tea parlor prior to spending a small fortune on books, potions ingredients, and other means of waylaying boredom (which was all then stored in the semi-illegally space-expanded closet in the bathroom)._

 _The warmth of the hallway caused Harry to realize when, exactly, this dream was taking place. Sure enough, sleepy, 7-year-old Harry stumbled, alerting Sherlock, out in his favorite chair, thinking, to his presence._

 _"Why didn't you tell me it was past 9? We have so much to do today, and I doubt your uncle will be happy that we're late for tea with the Queen!"_

 _"Whatever do you mean, with the Queen? You never told me that!"_

 _"It would have been easy enough to deduce, considering your Uncle visited the other day with corgi fur all over his pants, and the small tiff the two of us had, along with the fact that he brought you a new suit and tie!"_

 _"I thought that was just him reminding you to not be late for tea. As you well know, our tailor also has corgis, so I figured the fur would have been from him picking up my new suit, which I was to wear today for tea prior to entering Diagon!"_

 _"That's another thing- we aren't going to Diagon today. Mycroft claims that the auction will be held tomorrow, but we won't be going tomorrow, either, because fewer people are going to be in attendance than usual. We may go to a shopping district in France, but I highly doubt it; it all depends on what the Queen wants, and then, after that, what your Grandmummy wants. Now, scram! We must both be ready by 10:30, including having your hair under complete control!" Back then, Harry hadn't paid much mind to Sherlock's muttered "I'd really prefer you kept your hair long, but Father would have a fit...With what you get into, I suppose it could easily be a mess of tangles, anyhow...", instead focussing on not slipping on the bathroom tiles. Now, however, knowing his body would do exactly as it did before (no amount of concentration would prevent the two slips and one slide he had on September 1st, 2007 in this dream), Harry found himself wondering what, exactly, Sherlock meant by that. As he had, on that day long ago, he washed, and then applied practically half a bottle of Sleekeazy's (samples were free to him, as the Potter heir, to test the quality control) to try to tame his unruly mop of hair._

 _When he turned off the water, it was to hear Sherlock still pacing and muttering in the kitchen. The clatter of knives and dishes meant he was at least making something for breakfast. After quickly pulling on a robe, Harry raced to the kitchen and wolfed down a couple pieces of toast and an egg (scrambled, as Sherlock was concentrating on something else wholeheartedly), before brushing his teeth. As he left the bathroom with a comb and a mirror, Sherlock waltzed in, wearing his own bathrobe, closing the door as he turned the shower on. Three minutes later, Harry heard him looking for the outfit Mycroft had brought for him the other day (which was still hanging on the back of the front door) before the exclamation of "Aha!", the sound of running feet, and another exclamation of "Aha!". Mere moments later, Sherlock was knocking on Harry's closed bedroom door, to find Harry's comb and mirror on his bed, and nothing but his feet (one bare, one with a black sock) sticking out from underneath his bed as he searched for his other sock._ Harry found it strange to have been pulled out of his seven-year-old body to watch the rest, as though it were a pensieve memory, but thought nothing more of it as the memory of his father pulled his seven-year-old self from under the bed, exclaimed _"accio Harry's black sock!"_ , and was almost immediately bombarded by black socks from all over the room. At the top of the small pile was the sock he had been looking for, pulled from the hanger it had neatly been hanging on, alongside the rest of his clothes for the day.

 _Harry quickly dressed, and then sat on the edge of his bed, letting Sherlock try to manage his unmanageable hair. Doing the best he could, Sherlock managed at least a side part, before giving in and summoning the hair gel, which he used to flatten Harry's hair to his head, cursing under his breath about how "the dratted Potter hair will be the death of me, I swear". In all his rush, he seemingly forgot about his mind palace, demonstrated just how nervous he was (as that was a creation he had held since he was 6 or 7; currently, Sherlock was trying to teach Harry how to do the same, without much success)._

Harry could remember well the context behind the meeting, and the reasons for his father's worry, although he hadn't at the time. Back before his mother's sister and brother-in-law died in the car accident (by mere hours), Sherlock had realized that the Boy-Who-Lived was his son, not proof of Lily's infidelity. That caused him to immediately take a wits-restorative draught (as he had been quite high when he realized that) before walking out to the street to wave (impolitely) at one of Mycroft's cameras. His brother had been there within minutes, and, upon seeing how formally dressed he was (willingly), had immediately made plans to speak with the Queen. After all, there was little the British Government could do without the Queen's approval. By the time the Queen had reviewed the entire case, and sent agents out to find Harry, he was in the hospital, in a coma from the crash caused by his drunk uncle. It had taken quite a bit of work on his father's part to quit his drug habits cold turkey, but with the Queen watching, to make sure he was the right choice in guardian, there was little he could do. The bumbling fool Albus Dumbledore had stepped in before Harry woke up, to try to make it so that he went to Marge Dursley, despite her being on record as saying she did not want another child to care for (after all, she now had to raise her nephew Dudley, if he survived the trauma from the car crash). Somehow, he had caused the Queen to agree to send Harry there, limiting contact with Sherlock to "no longer than necessary". Sherlock relapsed when he found out. Mycroft stepped in, helping the Queen come to the best conclusion they could manage without Dumbledore's knowledge. Harry had to live with his mother's blood relative for at least four weeks a year. Two of those mandated weeks would be spent with Marge Dursley (so that if Dumbledore investigated the wards he had placed around her home, it would seem like Harry lived there all the time); the other two, with Sherlock. Dudley was welcome to visit them anytime, as long as he was not skipping school to do so (and had his aunt's permission). This particular meeting was because Dumbledore had started prying again that previous school year. Luckily, since Dudley was staying with Harry and Sherlock that week, Marge had claimed they were off on a week-long school trip (Dudley's classmates were indeed off on such a trip. Dudley had started taking after Sherlock in his lack of tact, and so was told to find something else to do for that week, which he would have to write a paper about, just as his peers would have to write a paper about their experiences). There had been no legal barriers in place, other than the Queen's word, which seemed to not be enough for one Albus Dumbledore, so she had set Mycroft to looking for a solution. He wound up suggesting that both Marge and Sherlock had joint custody of both boys until they reached their respective ages of majority. That particular paperwork could not be sped through by the Queen (and it would be seen as negligent if word got out, if She attempted such an undertaking), so it had taken this long to get done. This had merely been the signing of the papers. Dudley's school would start the next week (an actual boarding school, now, paid for by the Holmes family; it was the boarding school Mycroft had attended as a teen, although it started with kindergarten). Sherlock had wanted them to be punctual, because this would be the first time since the hospital that Harry met the Queen. He wanted to demonstrate to Her that he was no dead-beat father who just appeared coincidentally out of the woodwork right as the only heir to a prominent magical family was in need of a guardian. He wanted to show Her that he had completely removed all the taints of drug addiction from his life, and demonstrate that, when necessary, he was just as poised and proper as his brother. His mouth still had a way of getting away from him, though, which Harry found amusing.

 _The Queen's receiving chamber was comfortable, but in all the ways that reminded a person that this was not for their comfort, but rather that of the Queen's. Since it was a part of her chambers, her corgis were curled up together on a large dog bed in the corner, asleep. Marge and Dudley entered soon after Sherlock and Harry. They all remained standing until the Queen came in, escorted by Mycroft._

 _"We are here today to make sure Our will is done. We will not be a part of this document signing, but rather, present in order to ensure that all present know the basic tenets of Our will." With those words, the Queen sat, and, as everyone else also sat, Mycroft pulled out the papers for Sherlock and Marge to sign. Soon after they had signed, the Queen asked both boys if that is what they wanted, to which they both agreed. After exchanging pleasantries, and then biding the Queen and Mycroft farewell, Sherlock insisted the four go to the zoo, since they were all in London anyway. Marge agreed, and even bought both boys cheap lemon pops as they entered the zoo._

 _Harry was startled, looking at the background people (after all, in a dream, he didn't have to concentrate on walking, or avoiding Dudley's playful punches, since nothing could physically harm him anyway), as he was pretty sure he saw all the Weasleys milling around the zoo, with a dreamy Luna Lovegood trailing behind them, a hurt expression on her face when Ginny pushed her away. And, over there, was Hermione with her overbearing mother, and her mother's latest beau. Harry would have stood still in shock, but instead his mind reeled as his memory continued._

 _This time, unlike last time around, he could hear the slightest difference between speaking English and Parseltongue as he spoke to the snake, before Ginny Weasley got trapped in the empty enclosure (she had pushed Luna into Harry's side, knocking both of them over; Harry now was revising if it was he who caused the glass to vanish, or Luna that did it). He was now completely certain that it was the Weasleys; as what other family would have an overbearing mother (named Molly, as the timid-seeming father kept calling her that), a pair of rambunctious twin boys, a surly younger son, and an annoying younger daughter, all with flaming red hair, and be caretakers for another young girl, with white blond hair? Most wizarding families would certainly not do as the Weasley matriarch did, in vanishing the glass again, pulling her daughter out, and then storming off, dragging the husband with her, without replacing the glass, in front of a bunch of Muggles. The rest of the group hurried to catch up with her. Thinking quickly, Sherlock Confounded all the Muggles- he had been wanting to do a new spell he had found, where it only affected Muggles, but Mycroft kept reminding him that it was wrong if he did it all the time, and to save it for a dire circumstance- and made them all think that it was a new interactive exhibit, secure in the knowledge that Mycroft was watching, and would make such an exhibit happen. There were a few people here and there that it didn't take hold on- Harry noticed that Hermione had come in to see the end of the episode, and Dudley seemed unaffected (which was alright, as he already knew about magic)._

Rowena shook him awake soon thereafter, saying that he needed to keep his laughter to a minimum, as there were others trying to sleep. Salazar merely shook his head, smiling wryly, before going back to sleep.

He had several other vignette-like dreams after that one, all seeming to be completely true, but also revealing things he had never noticed before. Besides the zoo episode, there were four or five other times that his path crossed with Hermione's prior to their formal introduction, merely a year or so later. Prior to starting Hogwarts, he also ran into Luna more than 15 more times, most often being bullied by Ginny, and sometimes Ronald. He had even talked to her a handful of times (mostly when Sherlock had disguised him), although each time, it was like they did not know each other, as though someone had placed a spell on them to make them forget the previous interactions, or at least deem it as being "unimportant".

He also dreamed of moments when it was just him, Sherlock, John, and Hermione, all cozied up in 221B, with Sherlock pacing aimlessly as Hermione read a book, he either read or played chess against John, and John either napped or played chess. Those scenes of family recurred pretty often, sometimes even repeating for several weeks. Soon, it got to the point that Harry had completely re-designed the bathroom to be exactly like the one at home on Baker Street, complete with an enchanted window that showed scenes of modern London. Slowly, his bedroom also began to shift to mirror Sherlock's in 221B, although without _all_ the modern comforts that they enjoyed.

* * *

Harry decided it was probably best to focus on building the castle, now that he was obviously homesick. It had become like a second home to him, a home away from home, when he lived there in the future. At least, with completion of the castle, he would have somewhere he could go that would resemble something very familiar.

He also revised his plans for the Chamber, making a very well-hidden room (which only he could open) behind the wall at the end of the hidden hallway with the doors to an easier-to-find room (the one from his dream). He was pretty sure one of his future nieces or nephews would create the massive statue, because Apollo claimed all the Gaunt boys looked like the statue from Harry's memories, and so left it out. He didn't want to commission a statue of a bearded monkey-man just to fulfill something he knew would probably happen anyway.

* * *

As the teens had finished designing their common areas, and several of the classrooms, along with joking plans for a hidden chamber of secrets, there was little for Thespis or Hippolyta to have them do. Learning new magic would possibly break their new wards, or wear out the ley lines around them, but they had reviewed their lessons _ad nauseum_ (literally, in Salazar's case) over the last few weeks.

Salazar's impatience with being confined to the (admittedly large) house began to manifest with the new arrival of more snow of a new winter. They were again not allowed to leave the house, and he grew annoyed at having to always remain within his persona of Salazar, and not Harry, or even Leo. His glamour grew itchy, as he tired of re-casting it every morning, and that made him even more irritable. His hair had begun to weigh heavily down his back, and featherlight charms could only do so much, but he was always surrounded by people, so he couldn't exactly cut it, even now that the second birthday since his inheritance had passed months ago. There was little in the way of stimulation, and so Salazar grew moodier and more reclusive every day.

He finally broke, and dug out his viola. Thespis was rather intrigued by the sheet music (binders full of it), and was more than willing to sit and listen to him play. Usually they would put up wards, so that Gavin would not hear music of the future (after all, it would not do for Beethoven or Bach to be known in the Wizarding World prior to their births), or become annoyed by the screeching of Salazar working his way through being out of practice.

Rowena rather disliked how out of practice she had become, but refused to pull out her cello (hidden in the dark recesses of the space-expanded trunk Sherlock had bought Hermione for Hogwarts) to join him, on the principle that she would sound even worse.

Hippolyta eventually coaxed her into playing, saying that it would sound better at that moment in time than it would in 20 years, when she would probably have to re-learn how to play at her old level, before seeing Sherlock. Within an afternoon, Rowena had reviewed the first two years of music lessons, and was comfortable enough to warrant a duet with Salazar.

Both screeched their way through the duet the first time through, but continued practicing, and, by the next afternoon, they had managed a pleasing waltz. Hippolyta and Thespis tried to dance to it, making Rowena uncomfortable (Salazar was in his own world, only hearing and responding to Rowena's music). Rowena's slight mistake, then abrupt stop took several measures to reach Salazar's ears, at which point he paused, and then lowered the viola, blinking confusedly.

"Why did we stop? I was enjoying that!"

Rowena glanced at her adoptive parents, and then blushed, although she said nothing. Salazar's eyes narrowed in concentration, and then he smirked at Rowena.

"You were embarrassed at them dancing, weren't you? After all, both Hippolyta and Thespis seem to be slightly winded, even though we barely reached the middle of the waltz. You get embarrassed whenever Sherlock or John praise your abilities, and you seem flustered in much the same manner. Dancing to something is a compliment, usually, so I would assume they started dancing, which caused you to mess up, because you got flustered-"

"-Yes, I was embarrassed. Please stop talking about it, and explaining your deductions. We all know now, and there is no reason to spell it out so closely." She turned to Hippolyta. "Can we be done for now?"

Hippolyta nodded, and Rowena sighed in relief, turning to put her instrument away. Thespis stood in front of the case, holding a familiar, well-loved book.

"Why didn't you tell me that your self-updating copy of _Hogwarts: A History_ would travel well through time, as the spell only allows time to go forward on the book?"

"I never thought to look. Salazar's map was useless, so I assumed it would be useless as well."

"Salazar's map is tied to wards that do not yet exist. Your book is not tied to any such wards, and even includes the original blueprints, which are exactly like the ones that we've done so far. Therefore, I wish to ask you if you would like to copy the blueprints for the rest of the castle, or make our own."

"We should keep the original ones, I guess. Keep things as simple as possible, although some of the buildings... I'd feel bad about having you both spend so much on a castle that won't even be our eventual ancestral home."

"Our ancestral home is gone now, thanks to last winter. We have another home down south, which is in slight disrepair, and own a house on the Rhône. Neither are easily accessible, even for magicals, and so we do not visit often, but you and your children will inherit them when we both have passed on. One of those can be your ancestral home in the future, if that is what you wish. We are helping you, our daughter, fulfil the prophecy concerning her and her three closest friends, and there is nothing that is too costly for us to do that. It is firstly a matter of honour, and secondly, something we are proud, willing, and able to do. We have the means, and have had the means since at least the beginning of the Eastern Roman Empire. It is no troubl-" Hippolyta broke off with a coughing fit, although she waved away the other three as they crowded around her to see if she was alright. Thespis especially looked worried, even as she looked him in the eye as she assured him that it was nothing, "just a cold".

* * *

Nevertheless, Rowena rushed Hippolyta off to bed soon thereafter, insisting that they would go to one of those homes once it got warmer, so that Hippolyta could get well and stay well.

Salazar walked over to his trunk and pulled out a battered Potions book, flipped through it, and then set up a cauldron to begin making some Pepper-Up potion for Hippolyta, and probably everyone else around him.

He ignored the "slight" burning caused by an allergic reaction to the mistletoe, focusing instead on his family. He did not notice Thespis walk out of the room, nor when Apollo walked in, hours later, and placed his hand on his shoulder to alert him of supper. He did not even react when Apollo spoke to him in English.

It took a loud noise and his full name, spoken in Parseltongue, for him to look up. At his acknowledgement, Apollo began laying into him, abandoning caution to the wind.

 _"_ _Adrian Jamesss William, it'll not do you, nor usss, any good if you worry yourssself sssick over Hippolyta. Ssshe isss currently resssting, and one dossse of that potion of yoursss will probably make her well. You've made enough for everyone here ssseveral times over, even if we, as elvesss, cannot consssume it. Indeed, it is not healthy for you to remain in thisss room. I will sssend Hermione in to bottle thisss batch and clean the cauldron, asss you need to get away from this missstletoe. I do not wisssh you to get ill asss well, from sssomething we couldn't possssibly sssave you from- allergiesss."_ Harry nodded, chastised, and then slid his Salazar mask back into place. He went and changed his clothes and washed his hands, then read a book from Apollo's library for the rest of the afternoon.

* * *

That evening, as they were preparing for bed, Apollo unexpectedly came in, warded the room so no one could possibly see in or enter the room without the two of them knowing, and then bid Harry hide behind his changing screen.

Once Harry did, Apollo asked him to remove both his glamours, scowling when he realized that Harry's eyes were red from the mistletoe, and not tiredness, and his respiratory rate slightly elevated, not because of the relief from no glamour, but rather due to his difficulty in drawing breath. Looking closer, he realized Harry was even slightly puffy, although it had been so long since anyone had seen him without his glamours that he had chalked it up to muscle and fat at first glance.

He immediately forced Harry into the adjoining bathroom, filling the tub with water and pushing his son toward the tub. Exhausted, Harry obeyed.

Next, Apollo conjured a glass, and then summoned some water from the kitchen, forcing Harry to drink it while Apollo ran to the kitchen to get some milk, to dampen the effects of his magic. He would have summoned the milk, but that would have magically charged it to the point that it would do nothing for Harry's predicament.

On his way back, he passed Rowena filling vial after vial with the potion. Apollo had no idea what Harry had done to make so much potion, or even how he had managed to get such a large cauldron, because he was positive they did not have one that large, and the only cauldrons that it was ok to resize were, far as he could tell, solid copper only. As this one was definitely too silvery to be copper, Harry could not have possibly resized it. Rowena looked as annoyed at Harry as Apollo felt, and so Apollo made a mental note to modify the wards around Harry's rooms to allow Rowena or Hermione entrance if Apollo was still there as well. A reaming from Hermione would probably be good for Harry to recall that he matters to people, and it would do Hermione good to see him able to recover.

Upon arriving back in Harry's bathroom, he found his son to be repeatedly heating and cooling the water in the tub. The cup sat empty on the floor, alongside his discarded shirt. Able to see more of his body, Apollo realized that Harry seemingly had a rash along his back. Carefully, he handed Harry the glass of milk, which Harry drank rather quickly.

* * *

Apollo was just about to begin lecturing him again when Rowena came in, shedding her persona as Rowena and becoming Hermione instead, carrying a small blue and pink box. Inside the box were bright pink tablets, held together by some sort of metal sheet that was stuck to a sheet of what Apollo was pretty sure was called plastic. One of the moulds was empty, and he could remember, suddenly, the Christmas they had celebrated the year before.

Rowena, not knowing of the elvin allergy to mistletoe, had hung some over their doorway, and all over the main room, to catch all the nargles, a type of fairy that could only be seen by those who can see magical auras (which would wreak havoc on a person's mind). Helga had suggested it after hearing about Luna's fascination with them, to try to help Harry with his homesickness, which manifested shortly just before Christmas. Apollo had walked through the door, not noticing the mistletoe until he was inside the room, which smelled very strongly of it. Within minutes, he had itchy, watery eyes, and so began looking around to figure out what was going on. Upon spying the mistletoe, he ran out of the house, pushing Salazar back outside as he opened the door and stepped inside. Rowena, standing behind Salazar, noticed Apollo's eyes. Soon thereafter, it became difficult for him to breathe, and everything became a blur. He thought he had hallucinated the shockingly pink tablet she had shoved in his mouth, but obviously not.

Remembering the relief he had felt, he refilled Harry's glass while Hermione gave him one of the tablets without a word.

"It'll probably put him to sleep for the night, possibly longer. It put you out for a good two days, after all, and you're only half elf. He'll either have a higher tolerance for the medication, meaning we need to give him another, or a lower one, meaning he'll sleep for a week." Harry nodded along, looking at Hermione as she spoke. He looked rather dazed, and when he spoke, it was in Parseltongue, a sure sign of his drowsiness.

 _"'_ _Mione, you're ssso pretty. I'm going to marry you one day. You're sssmart, and you sssay nice thingsss, and your magic sssingsss ssso nicely. I'll love you forever and forever and forever. Nothing you could ever do anything to make me ssstop loving you. You're mine... You're my 'Mione... Get it? My... 'Mione..."_ As he drifted off to sleep, Hermione looked at Apollo nervously. She shifted her feet, and then looked at him sideways. In response, Apollo raised his eyebrow, and Hermione blushed and sighed.

"Do you think he'll remember what he said in the morning? I'd like to know what he said."

"No, you really wouldn't want him to remember. I could understand him, but you don't want to know what he said, and I am not going to tell you." Hermione frowned, but agreed. Together, they managed to get Harry out of the tub, with a temporary secondary glamour covering his primary one, which was, of course, tied to the Ellie's ring.

True to Hermione's guess, he slept for several days. The only thing which was unusual to Hermione had been the speed with which the medication had taken effect. Usually, it took a few hours, or, at least, a half an hour, to kick in. It had been quick with Apollo, only about fifteen desperate minutes, but it took all of 15 seconds for Harry to feel the effects of the Benadryl, which made Hermione wonder if modern elves would always be drug-free. It certainly proved that Sherlock was no elf, if that was the case, considering the way he enjoyed taking Muggle medicines like they were candy.

In any case, that was something to investigate at some other point. Hermione supposed she should be glad that the best magical cure for any sort of allergic reaction would knock the user out for several days as well, as that was then one less lie to the Hufflepuffs and Gavin.

* * *

Those days passed quietly. Rowena mostly worked on her music, although she despaired of ever reaching Salazar's level. Helga finished planning her area of the castle, and Thespis and Apollo worked at night on recreating the rest of the building blueprints from Rowena's book, and slept during the day in their offices.

Gavin finished his piece as well, and then visited his family, as Godric had been given family time by his knight-master in France, and Gawain wanted to see both his boys, to teach them of their heritage. Apollo was somewhat glad to see him go. The young man had never visited his ancestral home in Godric's Hollow (named for an ancient Gryffindor). Apollo felt it important he know of his roots.

With Gavin gone, the manor became much quieter, and the Hufflepuffs soon travelled home as well, the day after Leo woke up, making the manor practically deserted. A week later, the Hufflepuffs left for a journey to Finland, to visit Hannah's sister, Anna, whom was newly widowed with five children (Vayana, Kirsten, Kristian, Olaf, and baby Sven).

They would be gone at least a couple of months, and tasked the teens with caring for their home while they were gone. It sounded simple enough- they only had to make sure no one broke in- and so the teens agreed quickly.

* * *

The teens also took off their glamours, with the new absence of other people. In Harry's case, it was to keep himself from developing much of a resistance to them, as he worried that they would eventually fail. He seemed newly relaxed from being exactly as he was meant to be, even if it was slightly distracting to Hermione. His hair was no longer as annoying, now that he had removed his glamour, and so he kept it long still. Hermione was just tired of how itchy it made her.

Since there was no one else there, they moved back to their studies, this time using their modern textbooks, so that they would actually be able to offer the best education at Hogwarts. As Hermione owned all the textbooks, up to seventh year, they would probably be able to take their NEWTs when they returned to the future, unless there was a large chunk of theory missing from any of the textbooks. After all, the Wizarding world fell behind the Muggle one in the late 1890's, and most of the theory the teens had learned had been discovered already, even if there was no name associated with it, as no formal paper had been published on it. Generations of magic users had learned similar ideas to what Harry and Hermione had formally learned, through fairy stories and morality tales.

They already were quite prepared in specific subjects, but having an all-around strong education would only help them later in life. Apollo seemed to take special pleasure in teaching them how to brew potions, although it quickly became rather similar to modern chemistry when Apollo discovered how modern chemists balanced equations. They all found it rather simple, however, to balance the potions so that they would not have too much going on. Balancing them also helped the teens to understand what kinds of ingredients could mix with other kinds of ingredients between potions, which was something most Potions masters never considered, leaving it up to the mediwitches and healers. The health professionals, in turn, considered it the job of a Potions master to figure out what could and could not go together, only changing potions regimens when the Ministry mandated a change due to a death related to the potions being used together.

Harry seemed to intuitively grasp what the potions ingredients would interact to do, and what could and could not be mixed together. Both teens were amazed at how easy Apollo made potions seem, and Harry even began to enjoy making them.

Charms and Transfiguration were only difficult because they no longer used wands. They understood the theory better than most in that time, and all of their would-be-peers. If standardized tests were available in that particular time, they would be able to pass the 5th year tests quite easily in all subjects. Defence was going well, although Harry still had a lot of work to do in regards to building up his physical core so that he could lift some of the heavier weapons of the time. Hermione was fast and light on her feet, and preferred to use daggers or a bow and some arrows to the hand-to-hand combat that Harry seemingly preferred. Hippolyta seemed grateful for that, as it would keep her out of the melee of a large fight while still providing protection from would-be assassins.

* * *

She had gotten slightly better, although the cough hung on, even after repeated doses of the potion Harry had made. The entire group planned to visit the Peverell estate, on the Rhône, once the Hufflepuffs returned. Helga was now old enough to watch over their estate as a favour, and Hannah seemed rather glad for something for her daughter to do.

* * *

 **A/N: Thank you for reading this! I'm getting close to the end of what I have pre-written (but it still is the most I've ever written for a single project!), so updates will probably dwindle, but don't fear! I've been working on it!**


	9. Adventure of the Magical School- pt 1

The months passed quickly, with the two teens delving further into various fields of magic to try to figure out what they wished to specialize in. As Hermione once remarked, all the magic they were studying was so much more interesting now that they could see the ways these fields sprung up, rather than just studying the modern applications. Of course, that was a more scholarly approach than most Hogwarts students would wish for, and more closely matched the requirements for a Mastery in the subject, so, to Hermione's dismay, it probably would not be taught at Hogwarts.

* * *

All too soon, Hannah, Helga, and Helga's cousins Vayana and Kirsten, were back in Hogsmeade. Nik was again absent, this time having gone to Cornwall to find as much out about pixies as he could (there was a pixie infestation of strangely blue pixies; up to this point, they had occurred only in shocking pink, fuchsia, purple, scarlet, and neon yellow). The group in Slytherin Manor waited a week, and then departed for France. They were merely 10 miles outside of Lyon, but there were many magical barriers in place to keep uninvited guests out; so many that even invited guests or inhabitants had trouble getting through due to the number of steps in the process. Only Thespis did not have much trouble on that front, and soon Harry did not either, for some strange reason none of them could figure out, although they tried often. Despite the strong wards, which pulled at her magic most of all, due to her being the weakest of the adults (and in spite of her marriage bond to Thespis), Hippolyta did recover much of her health, although she still tired easily, and was the only adult to remain with the teens most of the time, within the confines of the estate.

* * *

Letters from Ariel took less time to arrive, as Harry thought would happen if he ever made it to mainland Europe. At the behest of the Gaunts, she had put her projects to the side for the time being, as they wanted her full attention for the next couple steps of the betrothal. No wedding date was set, yet (and the groom severely unwell, putting into question who she would actually marry; currently, they thought maybe a younger brother), but it was only a short matter of time.

For the most part, she was now allowed on chaperoned outings to the Gaunt family's massive holdings. She would actually get to see their English manor while Harry was in Lyon, and would even get to spend a couple days at Slytherin Manor with her future mother-and father-in-law as chaperones. It was sure to be dreary, as Polina was not allowed to come with them, despite (or maybe because of) Great Britain being where she met Ariel's father. Few, if any, people outside of the Gaunt matriarch, a muggleborn that routinely reminded Ariel of obscure magical social conventions she had read in a book given to her by her mother-in-law, knew what the schedule was, although obviously some people had bits and pieces. Apollo knew only the days they would be at Slytherin Manor, and when in the day they planned to arrive and depart. He would excuse himself for as short a time as possible to let them in, and again at the end of their visit, to reset the wards once they were gone. He personally would get to see his granddaughter for a few moments, when he guided her to the room she would stay in, alone.

Knowing this, Apollo had helped Harry create something for her, to leave as a surprise in her bedchamber. Apollo's moments with her would be brief, but he definitely would be able to direct her to some part of the bedchamber. Despite their letters, Harry did not know what exactly was or was not to her taste, so Apollo had stepped in. Harry had suggested creating something similar to what she was trying to do, but Apollo had said she wouldn't appreciate it; like most people, Ariel was at least a little proud, and her pride mostly came through in her inventions. Adding in the fact that her future in-laws had told her she could not invent for the time being meant that she would really not take it well if Harry left her a clue, as it would just frustrate her.

Instead, he worked on making a set of hair ties that would never wear out or get lost. If it were in danger of being left behind, it would appear on Ariel's desk at home, as a sort-of Portkey. He also sketched a couple ideas of a locket for her, to ask her which one she would most like for her personal wedding present. He would make Gaunt a ring that matched it, as he doubted the Gaunts would take too kindly to receiving only a gift for the bride, but not the groom, from the bride's family.

* * *

The teens worked independently on their specialized studies, or restored the estate (despite the strong wards, it was in serious disrepair), to the way it should be. One of Hermione's favourite things about it, of course, was the library. Harry much preferred to study the runes and wards around the building, trying to make it more stable (he believed the instability was a large part of the reason it was so difficult to enter or exit the property), although he found the Potions research section to be second-to-none, in his limited experience. Thespis figured he was probably distantly related to Harry, as Harry's invisibility cloak, a gift from his adoptive father, was one of the heirlooms of the Peverell family. The family had encountered Death, but escaped, twice in the last few generations, yielding an invisibility cloak better than any other known to wizardkind, and a stone that had the unique ability to allow semi-necromancy without any blood or spirit given over to Death. The most complete necromancy known, but still, it seemed as though there were a veil between the two participants; bodily fluids could be given across this veil, as that was how Thespis' grandfather was conceived after Thespis' great-grandfather died extremely young, right before his marriage.

However, despite being merely adopted into the family (in the future), the wards responded just as well to Harry as they did to Thespis, after a few weeks, and better than they did for Hermione. They also took his modifications better than those by Thespis, although that could have been because his modifications were more stable, and less of Harry trying to pour his magic into the wards to make them do what he wanted. No one definitively understood why the wards responded well to him, however. Hermione definitely would have worked to make the wards more stable if they allowed her near the ward stone, but she found that she could not be near it for more than a few minutes without some sort of force pushing her back. Harry tested as many theories as he could think of by analyzing them. Some were ridiculous and held no weight- like one about James Potter actually being Thespis' brother, who was kidnapped as an infant- while others made a bit more sense, but then made the future seem very uncertain for the state of the wards- like that the Evans family (of which his mother was descended) could have descended from the Peverell's at some point, and then that, mixed with his adoptive father being the closest relative to the Peverells in the future, caused the wards to work well for Harry. Another was merely that Harry had faced down Death in his infancy and lived, making him an honorary Peverell. There was no real way to test that- after all, despite being seemingly able to remember everything, there were things Harry did not want to revisit in his memories, because they could easily do more harm than good to him. The night his mother and first adopted father died would obviously be one such memory, and would probably culminate in months of nightmares, so he had locked it tightly in one of the deepest, darkest, dungeons of his pristine mind palace. The only things more deeply hidden were the abusive moments spent with the Dursleys and the newly obtained knowledge of Horcruxes, which he had read of in passing (there was a potion required to stabilize the split soul, which the soul-splitting, Horcrux-creating monster had to prepare, from scratch, and then drink with the noon meal every single day so that they did not go insane). He had come across it in his studies of why Polyjuice did not work well in cross-species transformations, although he had still not found a reason for such an issue. Apollo told him he would tell him, one day, but Harry needed to try to figure out the answer first.

* * *

Although they applied their glamours for the return of the Hufflepuffs, and their journey to France, Harry and Hermione were content looking as they actually did while behind the strong wards of the Peverells. Harry kept the lightening charms on his hair, but let it grow as it pleased, choosing to wear it in intricate braids, which, combined with his willowy figure, made him look rather feminine. Apollo and Harry collaborated on a date to cut and burn it, a ritual done by elves of old, finally deciding on the summer solstice as an adequate date. He would turn 18 years old 7 days later, which Apollo believed would be a wonderful sort of symbolism, as well.

Hippolyta remained in her room the entire day, while Thespis took Hermione out to sightsee in Lyon, something neither teen had been able to do since they had arrived. Apollo and Harry found a clearing, and as the sun began rising, Apollo began to cut Harry's hair, placing it into a pile that they would burn at sundown. No one else was supposed to be present for the ritual, as it was solely to be shared between a parent and their child. Even the other parent was forbidden from attending. Both fasted from sunup to sundown, and Harry would fast until sunup the next day.

It was said that an elf with enough magic would be able to see their future, or sometimes the future of those close to them, in the flames created by the hair. Harry doubted that, but tried to keep an open mind, just in case. Around noon, Apollo had finished cutting Harry's hair (he had quite a bit, and it did not seem willing to lay flat, so it was difficult to make sure it was even), and they sat and talked until the sun began to disappear between the trees. Apollo set out some holly wood, and lit it on fire before placing chunks of hair on top. Unlike what Harry thought would happen (i.e. his hair would smoulder and cause the smell of burnt hair throughout the clearing), the fire became smokeless, the air began to smell of lilies, and the colour of the flame kept shifting. Both sat by the fire, entranced by the lights within. Apollo soon had added all the hair to the fire, and they sat there until the flames went out. There were several images, different from what the other saw, yet similar enough that they would sort of know what pain lay ahead, in the fire. Neither spoke, instead silently rising to walk back to the house, although tears silently flowed down Harry's face. Apollo had a mask in place that still did not completely hide the pain in his eyes, despite his best efforts.

Both knew there was nothing they could do about their future, or the future that they saw. There was nothing to discuss, as there was nothing they could change. What would happen would happen no matter what they did, and there was only heartache in trying to prevent it.

Harry went into his room without speaking and began to meditate through the (short) night. Clearing his mind seemed to help, although he fell asleep. Apollo ate some food, knowing that part of the reason it all seemed so horrible was because he was hungry, and then went to try to sleep. Hermione and Thespis had chosen to spend the night in Lyon, and Hippolyta was already asleep.

* * *

 _The images from the fire flashed through his mind, suddenly in slight colour, rather than the orange-scale of the fire that day._

 _First, a woman- weak, haggard, looking extremely aged, to the point Harry couldn't even tell if he knew her, hacking and coughing and bedridden and completely alone- taking her last breaths as her dark blue eyes- the only colourful thing in that vision- closed; heartache ripped across Harry's chest._

 _Second, a screaming baby held in Hermione's arms as tears fell down her cheeks. She was the only woman in the room- Harry and Apollo were there with her- but she did not look like she had given birth as recently as the blood-soaked sheets and frail newborn suggested. Again, the breath-taking_ ache _of mourning ripped through Harry._

 _The next moment showed an unfamiliar young woman, turning to face a slightly older Hermione with a triumphant smile on her face, only for her to fall to an arrow shot through the air as her back turned. Yet again, Harry's breath was taken away by the pain of loss._

 _Next, he was facing an older teenager who held a raised wand pointed toward himself, shouting (although there was no sound) at Harry as tears streamed down his face. The only colour was a bolt of green light that took the boy's life away, and the only feeling was numb grief._

 _The next vision was of a middle-aged man- Apollo, Harry presumed, although he looked so_ old _\- holding Harry against him in a side hug on a porch step as two elementary-age girls ran through the street playing. Their vibrant hair- bright blonde and a redhead- and the green eyes of three of the people in the vision were the only colours. Unlike the visions before, this one brought about not just grief, but also tentative acceptance as the redhead turned toward the porch and smiled uncertainly at the two men._

 _Next came a vision of the Chamber. The older version of Apollo was again present, as was Harry. As the doors to the Chamber opened, he only could feel mind-numbing anger as runes glowed across the skin of the basilisk, indistinguishable from each other, but with one clear intent- to pervert her from her chosen assigned tasks. The only colour present was the green of the runes, and a faded green in all the other places that were normally green._

 _The final vision was a vision of a slightly older yet Hermione, sobbing as she turned toward a slightly older Harry. Harry couldn't make out the words on her lips, but still felt just as he seemed to in the vision, collapsing in a heap as he felt as though his heart were going to burst with the pain held inside._

* * *

Harry stirred with the first rays of sunlight leaking through his window. He tried, and failed, to go back to sleep (feeling like he hadn't slept a wink the night before, he hoped for sleep more than food), and then went into the kitchen to make some food for everyone else (hopefully he would feel better with some food in his stomach, even if that was not his number one priority). By the time Hippolyta woke up, he had finished making eggs, pancakes, and fresh orange juice, and was starting on the bread for them to eat that day. Hermione and Thespis returned soon thereafter, and Apollo came into the house after doing his morning stretching routine. Together, they all ate breakfast. Hermione seemed curious about what Harry and Apollo had seen, but both reminded her that they could not change the future, no matter how much they wished to. She glared at Harry, but accepted that he was not going to tell her until whatever he saw was unavoidable. The day passed normally, and so too did the rest of the days before Harry's 18th birthday. The only odd thing that happened was Hermione having her first dream of her past, of the same vivid sort as Harry.

* * *

 _The sun shone down on the crime scene. Hermione stopped to stare at all the police lights, tape, and official-looking people milling about the crime scene. Her mother dragged her along, saying, "Your father will be meeting us here, Hermione. You want to start off on speaking terms with him, don't you? Then we'd best walk, missy." Hermione looked up at her mother in consternation._

 _"_ _We are meeting him at a_ crime scene _? Why? Tell me about him, Mummy!"_

 _"_ _I've already told you everything I can about him, sweetie. I met him in a bar, got black-out drunk, and then, nine months later, I got to meet you, my perfect princess. He's the only one that could be your father, the only person I had anything even resembling a date with at that time. He came out of nowhere, and disappeared back to wherever he came from. He doesn't even know you exist. All my searching online had been fruitless until last week, when I found out that he is living with Sherlock Holmes-_ the _Sherlock Holmes- and Sherlock's son, Harry. He's about your age, and Sherlock home-schools him, from what your father claims in his blog posts. He'd probably be willing to teach another kid, and then you don't have to worry as much about fitting in with the other kids. Apparently, this Harry kid is already doing the same things as a 14-year-old in school, but he's your age. He'll definitely challenge you, for sure. Now, come along. We need to meet your father."_

 _Hermione followed her mother quietly over to the crime scene tape. A woman stood there, and began arguing with her mother about if they could cross the tape or not. Finally, two men and a child walked out of the scene. One of the men was tall, with a cat-like grace to his movement. His dark hair matched the boy's, and they shared pretty much the same bone structure, although the boy was smaller than Hermione. Both were almost unhealthily thin, as though they hadn't eaten well often._

 _The other man looked short next to the dark-haired one. His blonde hair shone in the sunlight, and despite his (supposedly) young age, his face was lined with wrinkles and scars. He certainly looked older than the 29 years he was supposed to be. He had the same nose as Hermione, and it was strange to see her eyes in someone else's face, even if that face looked rather familiar, despite the lines. It felt like she had known him her whole life, and yet, she had never met this man. He was more obviously her father than the only other possible man at the scene- Hermione figured most police officers would be easier to track down than a famous consulting detective and his "sidekick", so kept the question to those not in police uniforms._

 _"_ _This woman claims she knows you, Dr. Watson. Would you care to explain to her that reading your blog does not give her an excuse to drag her impressionable young daughter to a crime scene?"_

 _Dr. Watson looked straight at Hermione in surprise. His eyes widened further upon noticing the glare Hermione was sure she was aiming at her mother. He may not have been as observant as Sherlock, or even Harry, but even he could definitely deduce why this woman was present. He wondered how one of the self-proclaimed "Scotland Yard's Finest", Sally Donovan, was unable to figure something that easy out. He opened his mouth to respond politely, but the next words came from Sherlock._

 _"_ _I imagine it would be because she has something she wishes to tell John, Sarah. Or are you so tired that you do not notice what is right in front of your nose? You had no problem realizing Harry was my son; why should you have such trouble telling whose daughter that girl is? Even John got it in one go!" Hermione stopped glaring at her mother, finally having a name for her father._

Dr. John Watson seems to fit him well _, she mused._ Hermione Jane Watson... I quite like how that name sounds; much better than _Pond_. I suppose _that_ could be because of my disdain for my mother, though... I'd never tell anyone about that, however... _Her attention snapped back to the conversation as the woman- Sarah?- snapped at the taller man._

 _"_ _Get out, you freak!" The boy flinched, as though hit, while his father looked ready to hit someone, preferably the woman. Hermione's father looked rather angry at her words, but said nothing as another police officer made himself visible._

 _"_ _I couldn't help but hear that, Donovan. Consider yourself on the paperwork for this case. That is not how we treat consultants, and especially not in front of guests." Donovan's eyes went wide before she turned and stalked off._

 _"_ _I apologize again, Sherlock. I've lost count of how many times you've told her, and I've told her, not to say that word in front of Harry, due to his history. Thank you again for helping with this case. I will keep you updated with the court date."_

 _"_ _It's alright, Geoff. I know you are unable to control what others say, just as I cannot do so, either." Here, he gave a significant look toward Harry, although Hermione had no idea why. The officer rolled his eyes, muttering "it's Greg, not Geoff..."._

 _"_ _I suppose we should go continue this elsewhere, Sherlock, while they finish up packing up the evidence. I have a feeling that this will be a somewhat difficult meeting." John did not take his eyes off of her as he spoke._

 _The three behind the tape bid Greg farewell, and all five walked down the block a ways, before Sherlock hailed a taxi. Within a quarter hour, they were on Baker Street, heading up the stairs of building 221, into flat B. The flat was rather roomy, although it was also somewhat messy. There were textbooks scattered about. Hermione was formally introduced to everyone before her mother suggested Harry show her around the flat while she talked to John. It seemed like her mother was ignoring Sherlock's existence, but Sherlock seemed to not notice, sitting down on the wing-backed armchair, while her father sat on another armchair, leaving the couch for her mother._

 _She followed Harry quietly to his room. It was a lot neater than other parts of the flat, making her wonder whose textbooks were laid out so carelessly on the kitchen table (his bookshelves groaned under the weight of other textbooks that looked closer to being age-appropriate)._

 _Deciding the silence had crept on long enough, she held out her hand._

 _"_ _Hello! I'm Hermione Pond." Harry snorted, and, at her somewhat hurt look, elaborated._

 _"_ _I supposed you could claim you are Hermione Loo-Watson." She noticed his hasty correction, but didn't call him on it. "I go by Harry Holmes, although I suppose you could also call me Harry Potter, or Harry Holmes-Potter, or any permutation thereof."_

 _"_ _Is Potter your mum's last name?"_

 _"_ _No. She had the last name of Evans, and kept it when she married my step-father, about nine months before I was born. He adopted me after I was born, so I got his last name."_

 _"_ _I apologize if this question is insensitive, but why aren't you living with them?"_

 _"_ _They aren't exactly among the living, so not really able to care for me, you know what I mean?" Harry waited a long moment, as though waiting for her to process what he just said. It definitely was an odd phrasing to Hermione. Hermione blushed with embarrassment (and maybe shame?) when the implications of that hit. Harry twitched as she blushed._

 _"_ _I'm sorry! I didn't mean to pry, or make you remember things that you probably don't want to!"_

 _"_ _It's alright. Mum and James died when I was about a year old. Homicidal maniac, with no real reason to kill them, but still premeditated murder. No one knows why he didn't kill me, but there you have it. I went to my maternal aunt's place for a while, although she died a few years ago. I still spend a few weeks every year with my cousin, though. I like living here, especially since John joined us, and it's nice to know my father. By the way, in case you haven't deduced it, this is my room. We passed Sherlock's room in the hallway, and John's is the one between here and the bathroom." Harry twitched again, and then added, "A word of warning- the bathroom closet is a worse mess than the kitchen, and things may fall out onto you if you don't open it exactly right. If you need something out of there, you probably will want to ask Sherlock or John."_

 _"_ _Why do you think I'm staying?"_

 _"_ _John didn't think he'd be staying, either, but he did. We can easily share a room- the ceiling is high enough for two loft beds, and I know I'd enjoy having someone my own age around. Besides, your mother probably just wants John's paycheck, or to be freed from the burden of having a child-"_

 _"_ _-I'm not a burden! I do my chores, and make good marks-"_

 _"_ _-Yet you seem to be attending a religious school, as all the other ones started last week, yet here you are, on a weekday, not in school, and not in a uniform like you'll be attending school within the next few hours. Someone has to pay your tuition, and for the materials you use, and your dance lessons, your weekly manicures that you take for granted, the clothes on your back, the food you eat, housing large enough for you to have your own space... I could go on, if you would like? My point is that your mother is investing a lot of money in you, and even still was searching for your father, more than 8 years after she went clubbing the night you were conceived. You're 8, right? Because with John's timeline, that's the only age I'm able imagine you being conceived, other than if you were a toddler, which you obviously are not." Hermione looked aghast at how frank Harry was being (and the tone he was taking about her mother), and was secretly a little impressed by how thoroughly he had figured out her age and how her mother treated her._

 _She pushed a chunk of hair behind her ear before saying, "Can you please watch how you speak of my mother? You may not approve of all her life choices, but it takes two to tango, does it not? Dr. Wat-my father is just as responsible, if not more so, for the situation we are in."_

 _"_ _John was one of my mum's best friends. It completely tore him apart when she died, to the point that he completely turned his back on his father's family and joined the military, becoming a doctor. I apologize, if this makes you upset, but the burden laid on your mother to actually call him, on the number he wrote down for her, before almost an entire two years had passed, at which point he got a new phone number."_

 _"_ _She said that he left her no way of contacting him."_

 _"_ _I believe John when he claims he left her a number. He also frequented the bar they met in, so she could have just spent time there to try to find him. She was not willing to give him her number- he remembers that much of that night- so he assumed she had moved on when she didn't call him."_

 _"_ _How do you know all this, when it was just a one-night stand to him? Do they both tell you about all their 'conquests' or something?"_ Hermione grinned, remembering the movie she had snuck in on her mother watching which had prompted both The Talk and that comment.

 _"_ _No- Sherlock recently investigated a paternity suit, in which three of the four possible fathers all died of mysterious circumstances. The teenage mother had died giving birth, and the grandparents, who became the legal guardians are strongly opposed to DNA testing. They were looking for the father so that they could sue him for the trauma inflicted by him upon their daughter, as he had not given her any means of contacting him. John had mentioned that it was like a situation from his life, except he did not know of any child, and had left contact information, which caused Sherlock to begin looking for something that would tie the father to the baby or deceased mother. They ended up figuring it out because one of the dead guys was the heir to a family known to own a lot of sapphires, and she had been given a sapphire necklace. Using video technology, they figured out the heir had stolen a sapphire from his father, and then commissioned a necklace, which he gave to her upon meeting her (they were both heavily inebriated). No one knows what he was planning on doing with a necklace, but the grandparents all got closure, and that little baby now is heir to a huge fortune, so should never want for anything."_

 _"_ _Should I worry about knowing such personal details from living here?"_

 _"_ _It's all good; you get used to it, especially since Sherlock often mentions personal things about other people that he's deduced. He's gotten better at not doing it in front of them, and at keeping the really personal details to himself, but I learned about a woman's monthly cycles at a young age, nevertheless, which led to The Talk at a very young age, as well." Hermione, whose mother had given her The Talk just a month or so before, scoffed. "It also leads well into coursework designed for older students. I amazed my uncle Mycroft last week when I managed to pass the 12-year-olds' exam for homeschooling, just by using deduction, my strong science knowledge, and pretty basic maths. Oh, and of course, a high reading level. I now have to work toward the 14-year-old exam, for the end of the year. My father wants me to be done with regular schooling by the time I'm 11." Harry looked like he wanted to say more, but wasn't allowed to, which made Hermione wonder if she was John's_ only _child, for him to be this practiced at avoiding sensitive topics- either that, or hiding a huge secret. He twitched a third time. He took a deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut. The light in the room flickered for a moment, and Hermione heard someone walking down the hall._

 _"_ _You're a witch. A female wizard, that is. If I meant bitch, I'd say it." That was pretty much the only thing Hermione was not expecting Harry to say. "I can see your magic, that's how I know." He looked at her sheepishly, rubbing his head, and then added, unnecessarily, "I'm a wizard."_

 _Just then, the bedroom door opened, and Sherlock walked in._

 _"_ _You told her."_

 _"_ _Of course. How else am I to be able to concentrate on conversations with her, if my magic is basically screaming at me to recognize hers, and hers is basically trying to make me make her accept it consciously?"_

 _"_ _You haven't told her about John."_

 _"_ _No I haven't. You can. He's harmless more than 90% of the time, and I doubt Moony would hurt her. Moony never hurt me, and I just smelled like James and Lily's son; well, James, Lily's, and your son, I suppose. I hope you gave them some explanation for your sudden walk down the hallway?"_ Hermione, even now, in the dream, was having trouble following their conversation. Obviously, she now knew what they meant by "Moony"- and he was, indeed very protective of her, even growling at Harry once when he woke her one full moon about three months after she moved in.

 _"_ _They're talking, and I doubt she noticed me leave. What do we tell him?"_

 _"_ _Whatever you want. You're the adult, and you're more closely related to him than me. Do you want to take over, or will we just find a quiet time to take her down the Alley?"_

 _"_ _If she's alright with it. It's up to her. I don't know how she'll react. You'll tell her, right?" Hermione was beginning to lose concentration from all the changes in subject without the pronouns changing (because they couldn't have been completely talking about just her, or just her mother, after all)._

 _"_ _I'll leave it up to his discretion. Do you like her?"_

 _"_ _She's nice enough; not too sure about her though. I feel like she may be a gold digger, looking for him to cover the costs of living. We might just want to remove her from her custody. They probably won't do well together forever. It's in her best interest for John to gain custody of her." Hermione, of course, could tell that they were talking about her, and some of the comments were ones she once could not stand being said about her or her mother, despite her disdain for the same woman. The two males kept talking, oblivious to her past self's plight, however._

 _"_ _You could ask_ him _if he'd be willing to start the paperwork. Looks like we may need it soon for her."_

 _"_ _But Harry, why do_ I _have to ask him? Why can't you? He won't pester you with a million questions like he will with me."_

 _"_ _He'll snatch her and have a chat either way. You at least can make sure he doesn't treat her like a goldfish."_

 _"_ _But she could become one easily... You do it."_

 _"_ _I already asked you to. Or we could ask him to ask for us, but he may not listen to our reasons, or may not do it. His problem may be another stumbling block, but how to rectify that?"_

 _Finally, they turned to her._

 _"_ _Hermia-" "-Hermione, he means Hermione. My father is bad at names, or at least pretends to be. It makes no sense to me, but there you have it." He genuinely smiled at her for the first time, looking a little uncertain but more welcoming than anything else. His smile made him stop looking so much like a green-eyed, miniature, Sherlock Holmes, as it completely reached his eyes, making them look less cold and calculating. Sherlock tutted, but continued._

 _"_ _Hermione, would you like to stay a week with your father and us, to get to know him really well? We can easily make up for any school work you miss, and I doubt your friends would miss you for a couple of days, or, at least, if they're good friends, they'd understand your desire to meet your father." Harry's obvious relief was short lived. "If those friends exist, that is. You seem too smart to have close friends. Harry could be a friend for you, equals among wits in friendship." Hermione's glare was accompanied by a soft sob. Harry, not knowing what else to do, glared at his father as he put his arm around Hermione's shoulder. He would have been her friend willingly, without his father's input, he had told her once, long ago. The way his father went about trying to get the two of them to be friends had deeply upset him, even knowing that his father meant nothing harmful by it._

 _"_ _Not good. Go see if the adults need anything." The amazement at Harry's bossing his own father around was only outweighed by the next moment, when Sherlock did as Harry bid him without any reprimand, or, indeed, any words at all (only an over-exaggerated sigh that would sound more in place with a 5 year old told to eat their brussels sprouts prior to receiving pudding)._

Hermione was used to the next part being Sherlock getting into an argument with her mother over the existence of magic, and so was shocked when, after the two decided to eavesdrop on the adults, it was instead an argument about if Sherlock was up for teaching her.

 _"_ _I know John has mentioned in his blog about how I find various topics unimportant, and I seem to not know a lot of basic information. I must assure you, that is mostly untrue. Although I find many of those topics unimportant for myself, I could understand how another may find them of extreme pertinence. In the topics I am unsure of, I either ask my brother to help me find a suitable tutor or, since John moved in, I ask John to teach it to Harry. Hermione will have one of the greatest educations ever if she moves in. I have Harry's test scores from his last three exams right here, and I doubt anyone will find him wanting in any subject. I have plenty of practice, after all, as I student-taught at my primary school as a basics of chemistry teacher for a couple years, prior to Harry's living with me. All those students scored quite well on that section of the year-end exam in not just Chemistry, but all the physical sciences, thanks to my teaching methods." Harry's look of shock in the dream was completely new. Hermione spent the rest of the dream in a daze, just as she probably did the actual first time around._

 _The dream ended with Sherlock re-shaping the memory to that which she "remembered", after doing so to Harry, who hadn't moved when he came around the corner, and seemed lost in his own world in that moment._

* * *

Hermione woke up and went about her day without mentioning the dream to anyone. She wanted to try to figure out more about what it meant prior to mentioning it at all to Harry. She certainly had thought her mother knew about magic, but now, she was not so sure if she did. Hermione had certainly gone on the assumption that she knew, but never outright said anything about it to her. A large part of the reason for that, of course, was because of the memory she had of the confrontation between Sherlock and her mother. Obviously, her biological mother wanted little, if anything, to do with the magical world, and, as a child, she was very attuned to her mother's moods and thoughts, as she hoped for her to like her enough to pay for her university. Rose Pond had always made it very clear that her love for her child was contingent upon her approval of Hermione's actions and thoughts, something that even a 4 year-old Hermione easily picked up on.

It was a strange juxtaposition between her two mothers. In a striking comparison to Rose Pond, Hippolyta Ravenclaw vehemently stated that she would always love and care for Hermione as though she were her own child (which, she _was_ , now, more so than she ever was Rose's). Like John, Thespis was adamant that he loved her, and encouraged all of her activities that he could, such as the present she was trying to design for Harry (a trunk that could hold anywhere from 0 to 10,000 books, to be worked on secretly until it was finished, hopefully by the time he turned 20), or her secret practice of ballet away from Hippolyta (in fact, Thespis had suggested it). In any case, the three people she identified as her real parents acted as parents ought to. They all loved her unconditionally, and her interactions with them were not transaction-like. She had to give them nothing in return for their care and affection.

Harry's two living parents, however, were both enigmas to Hermione. Both were nice men, toward her, but definitely had mean streaks few could stand against. It showed in Sherlock's utter disdain for the majority of Scotland Yard, and the roundabout ways Apollo was rude to the Gaunts without them realizing. She supposed the memory charm might have been for her benefit- it certainly kept her from introducing her mother to the magical world- but also worried that it was as much for Sherlock's benefit as hers that he did that. After all, he would be the one that would have to explain to her mother that she was completely safe, even with her father being an honest-to-God werewolf, and even with him admitting that John stays with them during the time he is transformed, and they are all completely safe, because the wolf views them as "pack". In the meantime, if Harry did not mention it to her, she would refrain from mentioning it to him.

* * *

Harry received a letter thanking him for his gift from Ariel two days before his birthday. She hadn't yet decided which locket design she most liked, but assured Harry that she liked all of them. She would show the designs to the Gaunts, so that if there were one they felt was inappropriate, she would be able to factor it into her decision-making. It would not be the entirety of the decision, as she would be the one wearing the necklace, but they would have at least a say in it.

* * *

When Harry woke on his birthday, it was to find that his hair had grown from the shoulder length he had just cut it to, to be longer than he was tall (although thankfully not as long as it had been before). Apollo helped him cut it again, saying that it would do nothing to his magical core, even if he were to shave his head every day, and wake every morning to find he again had long hair. It was just his magic trying to get him to compromise on the ideal length of his hair. They cut it to be about a half inch longer than the time before, and continued with their day.

Harry had to put his glamour back on, as Apollo was taking him out and about for about a week, as his birthday present. Hermione would stay at the estate for a few days, and then she, Thespis, and Hippolyta, would join them for the teens' first academic conference.

* * *

It was fascinating seeing all the sites, although Harry most enjoyed the swim in the Rhône to cool off after a long day of walking. The first few days went quickly (seemingly a never-ending rotation of buildings that Apollo thought were important, and wanted Harry to be sure to see in their glory, so that if they still existed in his time, he'd have both experiences to remember), and then, once Hermione joined them, Apollo, Hippolyta, and Thespis let them have a day where they wandered around together without much chaperoning. The teens chose to attend a presentation at the local magical government centre about flame-freezing charms. In the modern time, and even just in current Hogsmeade, there was little or no knowledge of such charms, because they were so often deemed unnecessary. The local people did not mind magicals, or did not know of them, in Harry and Hermione's time (in fact, there was no knowledge of the original flame-freezing charm, only written accounts of what they did and felt like, and then best-guesses of possible spell combinations). In France, there were those that severely minded, and those that would try to woo magicals into their beds so that their children would have magic (and few in between those two opposites). Harry and Hermione were left alone, however, as they were quite obviously a couple, and many people assumed they were already married. After all, Hermione was almost 19, and Harry's glamour made him look a little older than her.

The two were surprised when Thespis informed them that they would be leading a student talk on novel Runic applications, as it apparently was a new idea to individually engrave stones with the runes. Most people would try to find a large, flat area and engrave the runes in the place they were destined to be. The talk went well, although it was rather surreal to the two teens that they had just accomplished one of the first things (chronologically) attributed to Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin.

They rested a week, and then returned to Hogsmeade, to begin work on the castle. They all hoped that Hippolyta would remain well, and wished to remain in Lyon, where she seemed to have the fewest symptoms of whatever illness she had, but building the finest institution of magic from afar was difficult. It was too almost too difficult, in fact, which was what caused the teens to give up pretty much before they even really tried. Owls were easily intercepted, and continuous Portkey travel was rather unhealthy. The runes couldn't travel by Portkey, for the most part, unless Harry or Apollo created the Portkey (due to the Parseltongue runes and the visualization component of creating a Portkey), and Portkeys were currently rather taxing to create in terms of magical power, especially when transporting huge masses of stones like they were attempting. Finally, Apollo had much difficulty in teaching Gavin from as far away as they were, and Thespis would probably run into the same issue. Hermione and Hippolyta, however, were still unable to stay behind the wards long-term without Thespis there, and Hermione would be upset if she were the only Founder to not actually help with the building of the actual school, unless there was no way to avoid it. Therefore, as a group, they returned to Hogsmeade.

* * *

 **AN: Sorry for going such a long time without posting anything new! Hopefully I can rectify it going forward.  
As always, reviews are very much appreciated!**


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